Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personalities) Christian Support - Part 2

Dreams & Nightmares

Nightmares and some dreams can be exceedingly unpleasant, so don’t waste them. They contain valuable information, so record them. This needs to be done as quickly as possible, even if it is the middle of the night, because many dreams fade from one’s memory amazingly quickly. The obvious place to record them is in your journal, which ideally, should be kept by the side of your bed. An alternative is to keep something next to your bed that allows you to jot things down (or the audio equivalent) and later transfer them to somewhere more permanent.

Writing out what you dreamed and thinking about them when relaxed and fully conscious can help remove some of their terror and might possibly prove beneficial, should the dream recur. The practice also provides a good opportunity to ask alters about the dream – what does it mean to them, how do they feel about it, and so on.

Nightmares and unpleasant dreams are your mind dutifully alerting you to matters you must face before they become even more serious. It is warning you that, despite your attempts to move on, you are still being crippled by past trauma. Most likely, your lack of recovery is because you have left past events languishing in the dark – where things always seem scarier – instead of devoting sufficient effort to prayerfully re-examining them in the reassuring light of God’s truth. For instance, lurking in the murky depths of your consciousness could be the fear that ugly incidents in the past indicate that God abandoned you and that he is not good and trustworthy, or that because of those unfortunate events God sees you as untrustworthy or unforgivable, or that you see yourself that way.

If so, these are not merely events in the past; they are fears and lies that hold you back right now and will continue to do so until you identify the lies that haunt you and you explode them with God’s truth.

Some dreams are the mind trying to come to terms with things that have been bothering you. You might not have even been conscious that these matters were bothering you. They can also be valuable in giving you insight into what some of your alters might be coping with. In fact, some dreams can actually be alters seeking to communicate with you, either by symbolically revealing how they feel or by sharing accurate memories. Additionally, some dreams are alters trying to come to terms with things by imagining themselves in various scenarios.

Dreams can sometimes be like flashbacks – accurate memories of past events that you may or may not be aware happened – but at other times they are symbolic.

I know a woman who repeatedly has nightmares in which blood is everywhere and she is being sacrificed on an altar by Christians. In reality, she has never in her life been on an altar, nor have Christians physically attacked her – except her parents, who claimed to be Christians, had often mercilessly beat her on the buttocks (without drawing blood). These nightmares were not of literal events but were her mind expressing how it felt to be on the receiving end of the way certain church-goers had treated her and how horrifying, heartless and malicious their actions had been. The dream might seem a gross exaggeration but it was emotionally accurate. What they had done to her over and over in real life by verbally attacking her, falsely accusing her and persistently trying to take her baby from her, had literally filled her with terror and had brought her within a hair’s breadth of suicide. The altar in her dream was symbolically appropriate because altars have religious overtones and it was in the name of religion that these people had so deeply traumatized her. For years, the dream had kept repeating because in her mind the matter remained unresolved. She continued to fear in the present a repeat from other Christians of what she had suffered in the past.

This woman is also plagued by other nightmares in which she sees corpses and she is accused of having killed them. In her dream, she cannot actually recall having killed anyone but she fears that she might have. She also gets the impression that one of the dead bodies is that of her only child. This often-repeated nightmare is not because she has ever physically hurt anyone but is a manifestation of the severe anxiety she suffers.

To help you understand, I need for a moment to explain anxiety. Anxiety feels like a guilty conscience, and excess anxiety can have peculiar effects on those who suffer it. A common example is sensitive new mothers who are plagued with thoughts of killing their babies. We have all heard of post-natal depression. Clinical anxiety (anxiety induced by a medical condition) and clinical depression are closely linked (often the same medication is prescribed for both) and the anxiety new mothers sometimes suffer has a very similar medical basis to post-natal depression. What any nervous mother most fears is hurting her baby. This, when magnified by excess anxiety, can cause some mothers to be so plagued by fears of harming their baby that they find themselves unwillingly imagining harming them (by stabbing them, for example). That is the last thing they would ever want and they are so horrified to suffer such a thought that they become preoccupied with it and so keep having the thought over and over. This is just one example of what clinical anxiety can do.

This woman’s nightmares about possibly having killed people have similarities to what some anxiety-plagued new mothers suffer (even though her own child is now an adult), and the nightmares are also powered by her low self-esteem and the false accusations she has been subjected to.

I have cited these two nightmares because had there been gaps in this woman’s memories – thankfully there were not – she could easily have wrongly presumed that instead of being symbolic, the vivid dreams were memories of actual literal events coming to her while she slept. She might have even, while awake, have concluded she was remembering her past when she was only remembering her dream.

A very valuable way of coping with an unpleasant dream is, as soon as one becomes aware of it, use your imagination to turn it around so that it has a happier ending. For example, if you were running from a monster, see yourself stopping, turning around and facing him and see him fleeing from you in terror. At first, you will be able to do this only after fully waking but as it becomes a habit, you may find yourself being able to do this while half-asleep. A particular alter of yours might become quite good at this.

Alters Coming Out at Inappropriate Times

In order to heal, alters have a need for “body-time.” Some have a strong craving for it and object to being kept suppressed as much as anyone would object to jail. Nevertheless, there are times when it is not safe for them to be out, such as an alter who is still only five years old taking over when you are driving or when you are talking with your boss at work. Even coming out every night when you desperately need sleep can cause consternation.

Any alters you oppress by refusing to let them come out, are likely to regard you as their enemy and will do their utmost to sabotage your attempts to control them. If, however, you let them come out as often as possible when you are alone and any other time when it is safe for them to do so, it will be much easier for them to regard you as their friend who has their best interests at heart. This will make them far more likely to respond positively when you explain to them that there are times when being out would not be safe for them.

Physical Pain

There are three parts to this section.

Not Feeling Physical Pain

Body memories

Headaches Due to Switching

Not Feeling Physical Pain

Some alters can be so mentally disconnected from their body that they cannot feel much in the way of physical pain. This can also extend to not feeling that their body is tired. They cleverly trained themselves to do this as a way of coping with extreme situations. Being like this might seem a blessing but alters need to learn to feel again for the following reasons:

Being unable to feel physical pain can result in serious injuries, as well as unknowingly aggravating existing ailments. Feeling disconnected from one’s feelings (whether it is physical feeling or emotional feelings) can cause one to feel less than human, and so have a devastating impact on one’s self-esteem.

Body Memories

When one’s body experiences physical sensations as if past trauma were being repeated, it is sometimes referred to as a body memory. Whereas a flashback is an involuntary, vivid visual memory, a body memory is very similar but what is vividly recalled (as if you were experiencing them all over again), are physical sensations and bodily reactions associated with past trauma. You feel it in your body rather than see it in your mind. These can sometimes be mistaken for physical illnesses, especially if you have no memory of the original event that you are recalling in your bodily reactions.

Headaches etc Caused by Switching Alters

At times, especially when it involves a highly agitated alter who is rarely out of hiding, switching between alters can be physically very demanding and cause headaches, feeling faint, and so on. As alters heal, however, they calm down and adjust to being out, and these physical symptoms become a rarity.

Alters Becoming Achievers by Working Together as a Team

People with Dissociative Identity Disorder start their healing journey barely aware that, despite their best intentions, they have the misfortune of being inwardly like a chaotic rabble scattering in all directions. The highly achievable goal, however, is for one’s alters to move from this internal chaos to becoming a closely knit team achieving great things, pulling together toward a common goal with joy, confidence and determination.

“Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall” (Luke 11:17), but it doesn’t have to be that way. Deuteronomy 32:30 speaks of one person being able to chase many enemies but it goes on to indicate that, by working together, two can put to flight not twice as many but ten times as many. Ecclesiastes 4:12 takes up the theme: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken,” (emphasis mine).

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” declares Psalm 133:1-3, “ . . . For there the LORD bestows his blessing . . .”

Alters teaming up to multiply their efforts is far more wondrous and powerful, however, than clones becoming achievers by working together. Since each alter has a unique mix of abilities, alters cooperating is like the biblical teaching of the body of Christ:

1 Corinthians 12:16-26 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But, in fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

For alters to reach their amazing potential, each needs to be treasured and delighted in. At first, this could seem like loving one’s enemies – something which in itself is of great value because it increases Christlikeness – but, having been starved of unconditional love and kindness all their lives, they are desperate for love and keen to please anyone who offers it. They will soon respond by loving back and changing and will become a source of joy.

Each alter needs to be nurtured and encouraged and to discover how much Jesus values them and believes in them.

When pushed aside, alters do weird things because they have been traumatized and lied to and kept out of the loop, but gentle, loving communication breaks the isolation and the weirdness.

Early in their development, alters need guidance and boundaries but, within this safety net, the more freedom they are given, the more they will develop into highly responsible, gifted and indispensable parts of you. And being a part of you means that the stronger they are, the stronger you will be.

A significant way for teamwork to develop is for alters to get to know each other well. Especially with young alters, playing safely with each other can greatly facilitate this. And for every alter, sharing their memories with each other is critically important.

One person was led of God to encourage groups of two or three alters to sleep in the same room. This helped them get to know each other. Every now and then she would deliberately change the arrangement so that each of them had different roommates and so drew closer to still more alters.

Self-Harm

Self-harm is so common among people who have been deeply traumatized as children that it is almost universal. One thing that often works with D.I.D. is to hide knives, etc. This can stop some alters from accessing them.

For general help, see:

Self-Harm: Emergency Relief

Cure for Self-Harm

Low Self-Esteem

Until you fully heal from D.I.D., you can only access a fraction of all the skills and intellectual abilities you have. This means that until you fully heal from D.I.D., you are more competent and gifted than you realize. More than this, however, alters typically have such appallingly low self-esteem that it can make them feel suicidal. This is largely because abusers usually do their utmost to crush their victims self-esteem so as to make them more compliant.

To quote from my webpage Healing and Wholeness for Alters:

A man told me about an alter of his that had just recently surfaced. “He is kind of a goofball,” he said. “He does not know his name or age.” My heart sank. Hopefully, as a reader of these webpages, you have been so alerted to the sensitivities of alters that you would never use such an insulting name when speaking about alters, especially when they might overhear. In actual fact, if alters first reveal themselves after some alters have already been helped, it is common for them to have overheard conversations and to have grasped from this that they are not the age that they had previously thought they were. Coming to terms with this is confusing for an alter but the dawning of an awareness of an age discrepancy is a sign of intelligence, not stupidity.

Some alters appear only briefly to fill a need and are then quickly buried for many years. Until they start reconnecting with other alters and current reality, such alters never have the opportunity to learn much. Their potential for intellectual achievement, however, can be quite remarkable.

Here’s another quote from the same page as that quoted above:

I wrote on friendship greeting cards and posted them to some of Alice’s alters. When I had only been aware of a few of Alice’s alters I was better able to give them individual attention, but it grew harder when many more appeared in fairly rapid succession. One day, the alter I had known for the longest time suggested that I give a greeting card to one or two troubled alters. She said that giving them something tangible would be beneficial. I decided to buy many cards that were each different, address each one to a different alter, and write a unique, personal message on each card, affirming my appreciation of that alter. Their excitement over receiving their own greeting card far exceeded my expectations.

I had often spoken individually to each alter, so I was surprised that the cards would have such a powerful effect on them. Then I realized that most of these alters had not only never in their lives personally received the smallest of gifts, most had not even one item that they could call their own. I ask hosts to think hard about how they might correct this.

Until I came along, these alters had been in such isolation that they rarely interacted with people and felt dehumanized. Giving each of them a little gift was another significant step in affirming to them that they are truly real and not, as some people think, a figment of the imagination.

Time and again, I have found that a significant aspect of healing involves alters having their humanity affirmed. It is obviously psychologically unhealthy – depressing at the very least – for a person to feel less than human. Likewise, it is unhealthy for people to have any part of them that feels not human or less than human. For a person to be in his or her prime, each part of the full person needs to be psychologically and spiritually in top condition.

It is tempting to fear that affirming each alter’s existence and individuality would perpetuate a person’s fracturedness. Consider, however, how restoring each individual part of a machine to full strength and pristine condition would cause the entire machine to function so much better. In fact, fully restored parts fit together better than rusted parts. Likewise, if an alter is empowered to be strong, confident and enjoy life, the entire person will benefit. Moreover, confident, assertive alters feel more empowered to share their secrets, thus breaking down the walls that keep a person fractured.

Over and over, as I have affirmed alters, building up their self-confidence and relationship with God, I have seen them develop all sorts of unexpected abilities that have immensely benefited the entire person.

It is so very important that you counter a negative self-image by doing all you can to encourage your alters and build them up. A story for alters (especially younger ones) that can help boost self-esteem is Susan has a Secret.

Choosing an alter’s name has significant implications for self-esteem.

God Loves You: You Are God’s Favorite

How to Change Your Self-Image

The Importance of Alters’ Names

It is so much the norm that we rarely stop to think that having one’s own name is a fundamental aspect of being human. Some alters have been in such isolation that they have not even had a name, much less had been regularly addressed by name. Being continually treated like this would be highly dehumanizing for anyone. If part of you suffered this, it will almost inevitably eat away at your own sense of self-worth. So this is one of many significant reasons for naming alters.

Sometimes alters choose for themselves demeaning names, such as Shame or Reject. Unless they refuse a name change, I never use such names because doing so reinforces a lie they have believed about themselves. In fact, if they let you, consider using an opposite name such as Honor or Beloved.

It can be hard to think of names, especially if one has very many alters, so here are some suggestions to get you started: Beautiful, Princess, Winner, Victorious, Cherished, Sweetheart, Braveheart, Kindheart, Purity. You could also use the names of jewels and gems and the names of beautiful flowers. In addition, you could look up the meaning of names. For example, Ann means Grace. Jane means God's gracious gift, Amanda means lovable.

In Communicating with Alters I wrote:

Name Your Alters as Soon as You Can

Nowadays, whenever a new species of plant or animal is found, it is usually not something that has never been seen before, but it looks so much like another species that it had never previously been distinguished from that species. Likewise, you need to know each of your alters well, or you could miss the fact that you are talking to an alter you have never previously met.

As much as they will allow, learn the name of each alter, or name them yourself. Regularly asking which alter is talking will give the alter the opportunity to indicate that he/she is not an alter you have previously met. “Take a roll call,” suggests a friend who has so far discovered several alters, “and ask if anyone else is there.”

More than this, however, when you have found more than one alter, continually checking the identity of the alter you are speaking with (if there is the slightest doubt) will help you keep building as clear and detailed a picture as possible of each alter’s character. This detailed understanding of each alter will help you avoid confusing an alter that is new to you with one you already know. What makes this important is that sometimes, out of shyness, newly surfaced alters pretend to be another alter. So be on the alert for alters who seem to be acting out of character. They might, for example, seem timider or younger or to be wrestling with problems that the alter they are pretending to be has already overcome.

You are likely to be surprised at how you come to expect different levels of maturity, knowledge and so on from different alters. If you mistake one alter for another you could hurt that alter’s feelings by expecting too much from him or her. You might, for example, chide an alter for acting as if he/she did not know something that you are aware is known by the alter he/she is pretending to be.

Ideally, keep a record of every alter and jot down details about each of them. Even if you are sure you will remember all of this, something unforeseen could happen that causes you to go into hiding and another alter who lacks this information would, at least temporarily, be forced to replace you.

Some alters choose normal but diverse names. Three alters of the one person might be named Jack, Bill and Brian. It might slightly aid their sense of unity, however, if they could be referred to by the age that they formed. For example, if the host’s name is Jack, they might be called three-year-old Jack, six-year-old Jack and twelve-year-old Jack. On the other hand, even referring to them by age could have a slightly negative effect by helping them feel locked into that age.

One woman told me the Lord had instructed her to start using a hyphenated name for each alter, with her birth name appearing first. For example, if her birth name had been Jessica and she had alters called Little-One, Precious and Mother, their names became Jessica-Little-One, Jessica-Precious and Jessica-Mother. I see God’s wisdom in this as it reinforces to each alter that she is part of one person.

A name can have such a powerful impact upon a person that the Bible records people’s names sometimes being chosen or changed by God. Consider, for example, how the Lord renamed Abram. The new name, Abraham, (meaning Father of Many Nations) built up his faith and reinforced a new self-image that lined up with God’s view of him.

One of Jake’s alters used to call himself “Reject.” Despite him not being happy with his new name, we renamed him Beloved. The following e-mail from him is not only touching and highlights several things about alters and the powerful way God ministers to them but it also hints at the power of names. He wrote:

I’m not hitting any of the other alters anymore.

For the last few days, I went to porn, thinking that it would help me, but Terry [one of Jake’s younger alters he used to hit] keeps singing praise to God and I can hear him inside. When I go to masturbate he starts crying and praying and I can’t continue. I want to be like Terry.

I told Jesus to be Lord of my sexuality today and asked him to be my Lord also. Jesus told me, “Well done!”

Terry says that when I do bad things it hurts him, too. He just keeps praying for me and doesn’t stop. He is afraid of me. I don’t want him to be afraid of me. I don’t hate him anymore. He just loves too much. I am afraid to be loved.

Thank you for telling me that I am wanted. No one ever wanted me. Thank you for wanting me to live.

Jesus wants me. I am just scared at times of him. He has not hurt me, though. He took me to heaven with him for a little bit. He does love me. I am still confused sometimes, though.

I am ‘Beloved of God’. I don’t want to be ‘Reject’ ever again.

I’ve seen alters profoundly helped by being given a significant, positive name. So choice of names is worthy of prayer.

Sex – Marital Relations

If some alters are distressed by marital relations and some are not, it is good for those who are not comfortable with it to go to the Safe Haven during such times. Those who are happy to be out at such times, however, should explain to the others that there is no danger to those who choose to be out.

Marital relations need not be a traumatic experience for alters who have suffered sexual abuse. In fact, I have been reliably informed that it can sometimes be such a positive experience that alters have been known to first reveal themselves during physical lovemaking, not because they were the slightest traumatized but because they felt so loved and valued.

Complications in Relating to People

People with D.I.D. have a stupendous yearning to feel loved, secure and “normal.” This puts them under enormous pressure to enter into romantic relationships, or even marriage, long before they are able to make such a decision calmly and wisely. Consequently, appalling numbers end up in abusive relationships or relationships that are tragically more torturous for both them and their partners than if they had restrained themselves and waited until they were healed.

It is better to remain single than choose a partner who does not thoroughly understand D.I.D. However, although it is natural to be attracted to someone who understands D.I.D. very well because he/she has D.I.D., the union would create such a highly complex marriage that it would be highly challenging for the most psychologically robust person, much less to anyone still recovering from D.I.D.

Little Alters (Older than Babies)

Here’s a pertinent quote from Healing and Wholeness for Alters

The Horror of Being a Child Alter

It is hard to conceive of a more tortured existence than that of an alter living in an adult body and yet trapped in the years of childhood. When treated kindly and wisely, alters can find total relief, but unless they receive the attention and comfort they deserve, their pain will never end this side of the grave. Moreover, unless people with alters learn how to avoid making things worse, they will almost inevitably create still more sources of suffering for their already severely traumatized alters.

No matter how much people might despise the fact that they have alters, they must face the obvious reality that no one can have peace while a part of him/her is reeling in pain. To live in denial, and ignore the needs of one’s alters will only perpetuate, and quite possibly intensify, one’s anguish. We’ll look at how to give alters the help and comfort they need.

For insight into how much child alters typically suffer, try vividly imagining being in the following endless nightmare.

You are three years old and have not only suffered deeply damaging trauma; you are endlessly reliving it. As if this were not enough torment, you are trapped in an adult body, which results in the perpetual horror of you being as real as anyone else and yet treated as nothing. You are despised by all of the few people in the world who are vaguely aware of you, and you are sure their reaction proves you are a hideous freak.

You cannot let a single person see you play or giggle or cry. Anyone – you know of no exceptions – catching a glimpse of you acting your age will ignorantly but sincerely conclude that you are literally insane, or at the very least, abnormal. Even children think it weird to see an adult acting like a child, and children are usually quick to speak their mind. So you dare not talk to anyone or even let them chance upon seeing you act in any way that for you is natural.

You feel forced to all sorts of extremes to hide from everyone, and yet you have the desperate human need to end psychologically damaging isolation. Moreover, how can you avoid making your embarrassing presence felt? You might not even be potty trained. Imagine, if you dare, the implications of someone in an adult body having that problem.

You might not have grasped that when people see you, they see the body of an adult. (The common blindness of alters to the true nature of the body they live in is only slightly more extreme than that of a dangerously thin anorexic seeing herself as fat.) If you believe you have a child’s body when you don’t, you won’t understand people’s disgust at you acting as a child and so you will take their reaction even more personally. And if you live in the body of a menstruating woman, you will be disturbed that someone very close to you bleeds. No one has ever explained to you that this is not a life-threatening illness. If you have grasped that it is your body that is bleeding, you could be even more distressed. And having the body of a sexually mature woman might subject you to more sexual advances that terrify you.

It might be that the one person hardest to be utterly invisible to – the host person in whose adult body you live, the one who best understands you and should be your greatest ally – finds you such an embarrassment that he or she hates you and, it seems, would literally kill you, given half the chance.

You have not only a normal child’s craving for hugs and touch but your trauma accentuates this need. Nevertheless, you either find yourself in the body of a person who doesn’t get nearly the degree of touch that you as a distressed child need, or you are sentenced to live in the body of a married person who receives touch that is traumatically inappropriate for a child. More alarming still, sexual abuse is quite likely the very trauma that made you an alter in the first place.

You could find yourself repeatedly exposed to movies, conversations and behavior that might be acceptable for adults but are deeply upsetting or even terrifying for a three-year-old.

To magnify every source of agony: you find yourself, through no fault of your own, in the devastating predicament of being unable to grow up. This means that unless someone at last recognizes your needs and helps you mature mentally, you must suffer all this loneliness, rejection and devastatingly low self-esteem, not merely for the length of a normal childhood but for twenty, thirty, forty or more years.

It can be deeply disturbing when you finally learn that you are actually part of a much older person. Suddenly you no longer feel you know who you are. How should you act now that you know you are not really a child but you still feel like one and you still like doing what others regard as childish things? Realizing that you are decades older than you thought could mean the shattering of many cherished dreams. So much you had hoped for as a child has either already passed or you now know can never happen.

It’s not just young alters that can suffer greatly from the way their hosts and/or other people treat them. Consider, for example, an average man who has an alter who believes he is female. Imagine how that alter would be treated, both by the man and by everyone else.

One needs to be alert to the fact that little alters can be naïve and vulnerable and particularly prone to forming an unhealthy attachment and/or dependency upon people. There are dangers, for example, if alters regard anyone as their mother, other than another alter or their real mother.

Everyone with D.I.D. has suffered horrific abuse as a child – usually, far more than they realize – and parts of you continue to greatly suffer because of it. I beg you not to continue the abuse by denying little alters the things they need to feel loved, valued and comforted. Parts of you might be filled with such self-loathing that they do not believe they should enjoy life or have fun and some even feel guilty about trying. Please try hard not to let these views keep other parts of you from healing.

Little alters can end up having amazing abilities that will help you immeasurably in your employment, spiritual life and other vital aspects of living. But for this to happen they need to be able to heal and develop in their own time and way.

Dolls, Toys & Play

Before focusing on how children normally use dolls and stuffed toys and why it is helpful for young alters to do likewise, I draw your attention to a quite different way that some people with Dissociative Identity Disorder use them. Sometimes a host (the mature alter who most often relates to the outside world) might use dolls or stuffed toys to represent alters. A host might, for example, gather dolls and stuffed toys around him/her and read them a story or hug them. One host would even put a doll to her breast and pretend to breastfeed an alter. It ended up being not just comforting but profoundly healing to the alter the doll represented.

Using dolls/stuffed toys this way might at first seem bizarre, and some people will never do it. Nevertheless, it is as useful as military strategists in a war room using models on a map to represent troop movements. Just as talking out loud, or writing, can sometimes help by making an internal conversation seem more real, so this can help externalize an internal interaction with an alter, making it seem more tangible and so deepen the impact.

Another unusual application is using dolls to represent sexual encounters. Like porn or self-harm, this is usually unhealthy. One danger, for example, is that an alter might end up imagining doing it to someone else and so edge toward becoming an abuser. It might, however, be used sparingly to explain to a therapist some aspect of past abuse.

Let’s now move to alters playing like normal children.

Older parts of you are likely to despise the things that comfort little children and help them develop. Nevertheless, you have been robbed of a normal childhood and no matter how hard you try to ignore it, parts of you have needs that have never been met. You will end up more at peace and more whole if you:

allow these needs to be fully met

let the hurting parts of you be comforted, feel loved and secure

let your little alters grow up (as contrasted with being forced to act as if they are grown up when they are not).

Moreover, little alters playing together is an important way of developing teamwork, which is essential for you to reach your full potential.

An alter was formed when just a baby and, for the next almost forty years, assumed a highly responsible role. She had little conception of the importance of play until other alters began to heal and it was suggested she temporarily hand over her responsibilities to them so that she could revert to being a child for a while. She writes:

By going back to being a child I learned to relax and play like a child. It taught me the purpose behind all the tomfoolery that kids accomplish. There is always the learning aspect to play but, more important than specific skills, being a child is about learning to relax and take it easy. Adults forget this necessity sometimes because of all the cares and burdens they are responsible for.

The sad part was that I had all of those adult cares and burdens heaped on my shoulder from the very beginning of life, so I didn’t even know I needed to learn to relax and have fun. Going back to being a child exposed all of that to me.

My whole life had been about trying to be strong. I had to be strong to deal with my family’s everyday life. I had to put aside all of my feelings and my own secret hurt and continually focus on all the different kinds of abuse we suffered. I had to be strong by making sure each alter was out when he or she was needed and that no alters were out when they shouldn’t be. Having any kind of feeling or expressing a want or a need was a sign of weakness and in my home being weak was dangerous, even life-threatening.

Even when we had escaped from our abusers I continued to act as though we were still there. It was the only way I knew to make sense of life. So I continued denying my feelings, needs and wants. I continued to reject any memories I had. I continued trying to be strong and making sure that all of the alters were in their appropriate places.

My time of reverting to being a child gave me the chance to grow up in as normal a way as possible and has inspired me to work on finding ways to take a break and relax and deal with feelings, rather than keep trying to shove them aside.

False Memories

Genuine memories of unpleasant events often feel unreal. Such feelings do not imply that the events did not happen. For example, even when perfectly normal people are coming to terms with the death of a loved one, they often have times when it feels unbelievable that the person is dead. Moreover, a common form of dissociation is for one part of a person to be aware of and recall a traumatic event but for a different part of the person to experience the associated feelings (horror, fear, pain, and so on), or for someone in a traumatic situation to go into a trancelike state in which he/she feels he/she is not present. Another common occurrence is for a person to switch alters (perhaps even several times) partway through a traumatic event so that no single alter knows the full sequence of events. In any of these cases, an alter’s memories of an event will inevitably have a strong feeling of unreality about it.

Another complication is that, for their own desperate need to feel secure and perhaps other reasons, children have a deep need to love and respect their parents and other significant adults in their lives. Moreover, people’s moods often change more markedly than little children can come to terms with. An obvious example is an alcoholic who is angry and violent only when drunk. Another is someone who is very different when out of the public eye. To little children, it can seem as if it is no longer the same person and even older ones can recoil from believing it is the same person and prefer to live in denial. This alone can be quite a factor in causing the formation of alters, with the result that parts of a person are left totally unaware of the person’s bad side. Moreover, the part of the person left ignorant is usually the host – the part who is out most often – so that that part is emotionally freed up to face the demands of everyday living.

Unfortunately, it is easy to jump to a wrong conclusion when you have only five random pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle, but early in the healing journey, the information you so far have is just like that. Anyone trying to piece together just fragments of surfaced memories could make a sincere mistake. For example, I know an abuse survivor who for a little while mistakenly concluded that her father must have been involved because in one memory she could see two men present when she was being abused. She knew that one of the abusers was her neighbor but she could not see the face of the other and she could not recall her father allowing her to go anywhere without his supervision. After prayer, her memory became clearer and it turned out that she was remembering a time when, while being abused, she had deliberately pictured in her mind a demon standing next to her abuser. It was a way of telling herself, while it was happening, how evil and horrifying this event was. This might seem weird but she was very young and highly traumatized and the abuser had claimed to have demons.

When remembering things that happened as a little child, you are not only usually seeing only tiny snippets of a long event, you are seeing them not rationally but through the terrified eyes of a traumatized child. The potential for misinterpretation abounds.

I know a woman who had the memory surface of being in a darkened haunted house surrounded by mutilated human corpses and other grizzly scenes. In her memory, a man in a black cape suddenly grabbed her and proceeded to sexually molest her. We explored this memory together and it turned out that the memory was not as bizarre as one might suppose. It was a memory of when she was three. At that age, she was unable to understand that the “haunted house” at a carnival was make-believe. What to older children was just scary fun, was terrifyingly real to such a little girl. No one twice her age should have been there. Had her father been able to remain with her, it would not have been so traumatic for her but he was too big to squeeze through some of the passageways and they got separated. Her memory of the molestation was accurate, along with everything else that she saw, but her interpretation of some details – that were real corpses, for example – needed to be reevaluated from an adult perspective.

Another complication is that dreams can sometimes be like flashbacks and be very accurate memories, but at other times they are symbolic.

I know a woman who repeatedly has nightmares in which blood is everywhere and she is being sacrificed on an altar by Christians. In reality, she has never in her life been on an altar, nor have Christians physically attacked her – except her parents, who claimed to be Christians, had often mercilessly beaten her on the buttocks (without drawing blood). These nightmares were not of literal events but were her mind expressing how it felt to be on the receiving end of the way certain church-goers had treated her and how horrifying, heartless and malicious their actions had been. The dream might seem a gross exaggeration but it was emotionally accurate. What they had done to her over and over in real life by verbally attacking her, falsely accusing her and persistently trying to take her baby from her, had literally filled her with terror and had brought her within a hair’s breadth of suicide. The altar in her dream was symbolically appropriate because altars have religious overtones and it was in the name of religion that these people had so deeply traumatized her. For years, the dream had kept repeating because in her mind the matter remained unresolved. She continued to fear in the present a repeat from other Christians of what she had suffered in the past.

This woman is also plagued by other nightmares in which she sees corpses and she is accused of having killed them. In her dream, she cannot actually recall having killed anyone but she fears that she might have. She also gets the impression that one of the dead bodies is that of her only child. This often repeated nightmare is not because she has ever physically hurt anyone but is a manifestation of the severe anxiety she suffers.

To help you understand, I need for a moment to explain anxiety. Anxiety feels like a guilty conscience, and excess anxiety can have peculiar effects on those who suffer it. A common example is sensitive new mothers who are plagued with thoughts of killing their babies. We have all heard of post-natal depression. Clinical anxiety (anxiety induced by a medical condition) and clinical depression are closely linked (often the same medication is prescribed for both) and the anxiety new mothers sometimes suffer has a very similar medical basis to post-natal depression. What any nervous mother most fears is hurting her baby. This, when magnified by excess anxiety, can cause some mothers to be so plagued by fears of harming their baby that they find themselves unwillingly imagining harming them (by stabbing them, for example). That is the last thing they would ever want and they are so horrified to suffer such a thought that they become preoccupied with it and so keep having the thought over and over. This is just one example of what clinical anxiety can do.

This woman’s nightmares about possibly having killed people have similarities to what some anxiety-plagued new mothers suffer, and the nightmares are also powered by her low self-esteem and the false accusations she has been subjected to.

I have cited these two nightmares because had there been gaps in this woman’s memories – thankfully there were not – she could easily have wrongly presumed that instead of being symbolic, the vivid dreams were memories of actual literal events coming to her while she slept. She might have even, while awake, have concluded she was remembering her past when she was only remembering her dream.

Your primary focus, however, should be gaining emotional and psychological relief, not trying to accurately reconstruct all the facts about your past.

Regaining Memories

Since dissociation is all about becoming highly detached from a tragic event, you can expect it to seem unreal. Moreover, if dissociation goes to the extreme of creating another personality, it truly is as if it happened not to you but to another person. In the process of healing from D.I.D., however, alters draw closer and closer. This is not merely like two separate people talking so often about their experiences that they know each other intimately, your alters are literally part of you. You share the same brain.

As alters cease to feel the need to keep secrets from each other, they gradually discover how to access each other’s memories. The very part of the brain where those memories are stored is no longer off limits to other alters.

Do not try to force this process but focus instead on removing any supposed need for access to these memories to be barred. The supposed need is largely driven by the worry that some parts will not be able to cope with the truth. There are two sides to this: not only can the alter who controls access to the memory keep the barrier up because of their concern about how others will cope with it, other alters can themselves fear that they could not cope and so avoid any attempt to access the memory. Once these concerns diminish (and they will as alters grow stronger) accessing each other’s memories begins to occur naturally. Learning how to do so is made easier by practicing accessing each other’s positive memories and abilities.

Things such as flashbacks are your mind screaming that it has had enough and can no longer keep living in denial and suppressing past experiences. Those past experiences need to recalled and faced and resolved. Sudden, unsought flashes of memory (sometimes they can be felt [body memories] rather than visually seen [flashback]) are unpleasant but are a huge step forward in the healing process. They are the mind rebelling against remaining fragmented because the emotional cost of fragmentation and the amount of mental effort required to maintain it is much higher than you probably realize. What you need to fear is not the past returning to your memory, but continually living in ignorance of your past. To keep yourself in ignorance is like trying to live in denial of a cancer that is curable if only you know you have it and seek help.

Objective verification of facts of childhood abuse (such as the testimony of other witnesses) is usually exceedingly hard, or even impossible, but do whatever you can in that regard. Sometimes there might be medical evidence such as a current x-ray revealing bones fractures that must have occurred as a child.

Keep journaling, getting to know your alters and looking to God but don’t be quick to accuse people of hurting you. On the other hand, however, treat any suspect with caution. For example, don’t get into a situation where you could end up alone with them or they could have access to your children.

Believing Yourself to be a Liar

It is not uncommon for people with D.I.D. to mistakenly think of themselves as liars. There are several reasons for this:

1. Abusers crush their victims’ self-esteem, thus filling them with self-doubt.

2. We all have a strong tendency to let what others say about us shape our self-image until we actually believe that is who we are. What makes this so significant to this discussion is that most people with D.I.D. have frequently been falsely accused of deliberately lying. Here are some reasons for these deeply wounding accusations:

Often an alter will do something in public when another alter is not present and so has no knowledge of it ever occurring. The alter who is totally unaware of the event is likely to sincerely deny all knowledge of it, thus making him/her seem like a liar in the eyes of other people who witnessed the event.

Motivated by the need to conceal the crimes they commit, abusers usually do their utmost to convince people into thinking they are very upright, respectable people. They often assume powerful leadership roles and are usually so good at deceit that decent people (for whom abuse itself is almost unthinkable) find it inconceivable that these apparently respectable deceivers could be guilty of such crimes. The tragic consequence is that if you tell these deceived people the truth, they are therefore more likely to believe the respected adult than the victim.

In order to protect themselves from being exposed as abusers, some abusers are cunning enough to deliberately set up their victims to be seen as liars if they tell anyone. Abusers do this by lying to their victims and deceiving them so that if their victims repeat what they have been tricked into believing, these things can easily be disproved, thus destroying the credibility of the victims when they say true things about the abuser.

3. With D.I.D. you can expect to feel so detached from certain experiences that when an alter shares something you wish were not true that has been kept from your awareness all your life, there will be no ring of truth to it. Not only will it not feel true, it is likely to be contrary to everything you have believed about a person. For example, for their own security children have a desperate need to believe the best about their parents and even abusive parents typically have times when they are nice to their children. If you have always been around when your parents were nice and other alters protected you by taking over when your parents were not nice, the full truth about them will seem like a lie.

4. D.I.D. is all about trying to cope by living in denial of highly distressing truths. Having employed this technique all your life, it becomes a deeply ingrained habit. To convince yourself that an upsetting truth is a lie enables you to keep employing this time-worn survival technique even after you have heard the truth.

Fearing You have Committed a Crime

The following is taken from Sadistic Ritual Abuse Explained but it applies to many abusers:

Knowing that some children react to trauma by forming separate identities (insiders) as a coping mechanism, some abusers deliberately induce trauma. A typical way is to put their victims into a no-win situation, such as telling them that if they do not kill a certain person, then someone else dear to them will be killed. That way, no matter what the victims do, they will be riddled with horror and guilt over feeling a false sense of responsibility for the person’s death.

A key point to keep in focus is that the result is the same in the victim’s psyche regardless of whether the event actually happened or was merely a clever hoax. For example, if guns are filled with blanks and the person supposedly shot keels over in a pool of fake blood and is never seen again, the trauma will be as effective in producing an insider as if the person had actually been murdered. Furthermore, it is easier for the abuser if the event is actually an elaborate trick. It means, for example, there are no bodies to dispose of and if the abuse victim were ever to report the “murder” to the police they would discover that no one had been killed and the victim would be discredited, should he or she make other allegations.

We all know how convincing showmen (illusionists) can be when pretending to be magicians. On top of this, victims are usually young and already so highly traumatized that even the most intelligent victim is rendered vulnerable to tricksters. Some abusers force drugs upon their victims, making it even harder to discern reality.

Never forget that since abusers are given over to evil, they cannot be expected to be truthful. Just as the devil himself is a liar (John 8:44), deceit is second nature to these people. Moreover, it is very much in their interest to deceive, because the more they can deceive a victim, the less believable that person’s stories will sound if ever reported to authorities.

Abusers cannot be trusted to tell their victims the truth about anything. If, for example, abusers engage in satanic rituals, they might happen to believe in those practices but even their apparent belief could be a lie. They know that dark cloaked figures, “human sacrifice”, and eerie rituals would help traumatize a child and this could be enough to motivate them to use such things as props.

Unable to Recall Trauma

Parts of you are used to keeping you in the dark about various traumas you have suffered. They did this because they thought you were not strong enough to cope with the memories while functioning normally. What they have not taken sufficiently into account, however, is that you are now much more mature and have more support and now live a more stable life than when the trauma occurred and that the emotional cost of keeping you unaware is far higher than they realize because they need your maturity etc. to help them heal from past events.

For more on the importance of facing the past, see:

Positive Confession? Or Living in Denial?

Another issue is alters believing an abuser’s threats that if they tell anyone about what happened to you, something terrible will happen. An abuser might say that if an alter says anything about the abuse, police will put you in jail, you’ll be stoned as an adulteress, you’ll be taken from your family, a demon will torture you, a loved one will be hurt, etc. Often the threat could be seen by an adult as being ridiculous or it is no longer valid because of the passage of time, but an alter trying to protect you is likely to be unaware of this unless you explain it to him/her. An alter might therefore keep information from you out of fear that you would blab what you learn to other people. This makes it very important that you respect the confidentiality of alters and that they know you are trustworthy in this regard. Certainly, help alters understand that it is safe to tell others, but don’t reveal anything without their permission to do so.

Forgetting Things

People with D.I.D. can be so forgetful that some have even feared they might have Alzheimer’s. Frequently, it causes immense stress and can get them accused of lying, simply because they honestly cannot recall events that observers know you did.

With D.I.D., the reason for forgetfulness is usually simple: D.I.D. is all about part of a person (an alter) protecting the rest of the person from having to cope with certain upsetting memories. They do this by keeping from the rest of the person all awareness of those memories, thus freeing the rest of the person to focus on other things necessary to succeed in life. The downside, however, is that it usually applies not just to traumatic memories but to neutral memories the alter has. So if the alter gains useful information needed for the person’s employment or everyday functioning, access to that information (memories) is temporarily lost whenever another alter takes control.

You could suddenly find yourself without critically-needed information simply because the alter that has that information is asleep or was upset and went into hiding. How long you are left without this information could vary from a few moments to years.

Since the temporary disappearance of an alter could occur unexpectedly, it is good to safeguard oneself by keeping written lists of things that need doing each day, written records of how to perform in one’s place of employment, and so on. Do this even if you feel sure you could never forget.

It is good to reach the stage where you have alter meetings in which all alters gather and fill each other in on what they have done, how they feel and so on. Some meetings can be longer, where things are discussed in length but even brief ones where everyone is brought quickly up-to-date can be of great value. Then it is not so disastrous if the alter who did something important is not around at a critical time. Such meetings can increase your efficiency and reduce embarrassing slipups.

It is also good to train up other alters in important tasks so that they can take over should a key alter suddenly not be available.

For many reasons, the more one heals, the less of an issue this is. For example, alters get stronger and so are increasingly less likely to be frightened into withdrawing deep inside, and other alters learn not to suddenly take over and displace the alter in charge. Also, as alters begin sharing secrets with each other, they lose the need to prevent others from accessing their memories. Eventually, their memories can be accessed even when they are not around.

Here’s a condensed and adapted extract from one of my webpages:

Sometimes a friend of mine with D.I.D. would wake in the morning to find things rearranged and – most frustrating of all – she would have to hunt everywhere for her keys that were not where she had left them.

One day, as I was chatting with her child alter, the alter mentioned in passing, as if it were something unusual, that last night she had slept all night. That immediately aroused my interest. “What do you usually do?” I asked.

It turned out that the alter only felt safe to play without ridicule when everyone else was asleep. She particularly liked playing with keys and her host had moved her other toys away from the bed, so she had to get up to access them.

“I try not to wake Mommy (her host),” she said. “Please don’t tell her.”

I gently persuaded her that her host would not be angry and obtained her permission to let the host know. It turned out that the host had overheard part of the conversation anyhow.

The host and alter were able to work out some amicable and effective solutions. An obvious start was to keep the toys by the edge of the bed, so that the alter could play with them in bed. Better still, the host explained to the alter how they would both feel more refreshed if they slept at the same time, and the host began slotting into her waking hours a time when her alter could play in privacy. She also purchased a pocket doll for her alter to play with when she was at work. Both alter and host benefited from this new level of mutual understanding and cooperation – and she could find her keys each morning.

Switching

Switching occurs when one part (an alter) of a person withdraws and another part takes full control of the person’s consciousness. It can occur either because the alter who had been in control voluntarily withdraws, or because another alter forcibly takes over.

Voluntary withdrawal might simply be because the alter is tired, but it might be because something frightened the alter, such as something occurring that bears even a superficial similarity to some past trauma. When the alter goes deep inside, some other alter is forced to fill in the vacuum, even though the replacement alter might not have a clue about how to cope with the new responsibilities.

An alter might forcibly take over just because he/she enjoys being in the external world or it might be because the alter senses danger and feels he/she must take over to protect the rest of the person. The perceived danger might not necessarily be real. It could be something as harmless as meeting a man who wears the same aftershave as a former abuser. Nevertheless, it will feel terrifying to the alter.

To quote from Forgetting Things:

Since the temporary disappearance of an alter could occur unexpectedly, it is good to safeguard oneself by keeping written lists of things that need doing each day, written records of how to perform in one’s place of employment, and so on. Do this even if you feel sure you could never forget.

For many reasons, the more one heals, the less of an issue this is. For example, alters get stronger and so are increasingly less likely to be frightened into withdrawing deep inside, and other alters learn not to suddenly take over and displace the alter in charge. Also, as alters begin sharing secrets with each other, they lose the need to prevent others from accessing their memories. Eventually, their memories can be accessed even when they are not around.

Body Time

The time when an alter has full control of the body and so can freely interact with the outside world is known as body-time. Some alters were once so terrified that they remained deep inside for many years but as they heal they gain confidence and become curious about the outside world. And some begin to really enjoy things most of us take for granted but to them are so new and exciting. Alters gaining the confidence to come out is a good sign and when they are fully healed they, and all the other alters, will always relate to the outside world. In the early stages, however, their inexperience in relating to the outside world can pose embarrassing and even dangerous problems. So until they gain all the needed knowledge and experience, their times in control need to be carefully monitored. They must learn not to take over without express permission from the alter with the needed experience and the experienced alter needs to remain in the background and supervise. This is known as co-consciousness.

Co-Consciousness

Co-consciousness occurs when two or more alters are simultaneously aware of what is happening in the external world. Usually one is the driver’s seat, as it were, and the other is able only to observe. Some describe it as like looking at the world from behind a plate glass window. For hosts or alters with little previous experience of this, it can initially be alarming to find oneself unable to control one’s own body, but with a little practice it can become as natural as learning to ride a bike.

You might almost always have one level of awareness, but there are other possibilities that you might sometimes experience. Other alters can also move from one level to another. Since such changes can be bewildering, let me list the possibilities.

1. You are fully in control of the body and are uninfluenced by any other alter. If you almost always have this level of consciousness (and especially if other alters rarely, if ever, take over the body when you sleep), you will find it difficult to believe you have D.I.D. Even if you are aware of other alters or of having symptoms associated with D.I.D., you might have an alter who has no such awareness and is often in charge of the body. If that alter were the only one to interact with a therapist, it is unlikely that even a skilled therapist will detect D.I.D. This can make diagnosis problematical.

2. You are fully in control of the body but are being fed information and/or skills and/or feelings by one or more other alters. You might realize that other alters are contributing, or you might presume that it is all your own doing. If you are in the latter situation, you might be puzzled as to why your feelings sometimes do not match your circumstances. You might also have become so accustomed to being fed a particular ability that you are shocked when you suddenly lose that ability when that alter sleeps or goes deeper inside. All that you might know about it is that you no longer have that ability. A common reason for an alter suddenly withdrawing is that something frightens the alter (it might not be upsetting to you) because what happened bears superficial similarities to something unpleasant that the alter experienced years ago. Usually, the alter does not remain in hiding for very long, but it can be very disconcerting when it happens, and you can be left floundering without that alters knowledge and/or skills.

3. You retain awareness of the outside world and of what is happening to your body, but you have no control over the body because another alter has exclusive control over it. In this case, you will be acutely conscious that something unusual is happening.

4. You have lost any awareness of the outside world, and may or may not have any awareness of alters in the inside world.

Confusion

I have never heard the word confused nearly used so often as when talking with people with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

A primary reason for confusion is alters becoming aware of current reality after having been buried deep inside for many years. It is like the fable of Rip Van Winkle who went to sleep for twenty years. What seemed like only yesterday was actually years ago and so much had changed without his awareness.

Moreover, in the case of alters who were young when they lost awareness of the outside world, not only do they find themselves in a different time and place, enormous changes have occurred to their own bodies. What a shock to suddenly discover that their body has suddenly not only grown up but become that of a middle-aged person! Some alters even go to sleep convinced they are one gender, only to look in a mirror and find that their outside body is that of the opposite sex.

Another common source of confusion occurs when an alter quite familiar with current circumstances is suddenly displaced by another alter but the original alter or host remains co-conscious and finds himself/herself unable to control his or her own body.

Not only does the displaced alter temporarily lose the ability to control the body, but the new alter might not even be able to do so. The alter taking over might be a baby who has not yet learned how to walk or control his/her bodily functions. Moreover, to a little alter, everything could seem big and mysterious.

If, however, the temporarily displaced alter does not remain aware of what is happening, that introduces another source of confusion. When the alter finally regains consciousness, another part of him/her will have moved things and perhaps spoken with other people without the original alter having any recollection of it.

I am astonished by how quickly – usually just a matter of days – alters come to terms with these massive changes, but who wouldn’t initially be confused? Feeling confused is disturbing at first but, as unpleasant as it initially is, it is among the most wonderful things that could ever happen because it opens up all sorts of beautiful healing opportunities.

Another source of confusion is that alters can switch one or more times during a traumatic event so that no single alter recalls the entire event, and it is only when all participating alters reveal what they remember that the entire event can be pieced together. When only a portion of the event is known, it is easy to incorrectly presume how it began or ended.

Yet another perplexing source of confusion is feeling fearful or sad or some other emotion and finding no reason for that feeling. Such instances are likely to be because the feelings of another alter are washing over you. Ask the alter (even if you are not sure whether he or she can hear) why he feels that way. This can be a wonderful opportunity to get to know an alter better. The simple act of the alter sharing with you can help the alter feel less isolated and so bring the alter a degree of comfort. You are likely to also be able to give some reassurance or helpful advice to the alter.

When you feel confused and are not sure why, it could be an alter who is feeling this way. So act on this possibility by telling yourself (preferably out loud) in the hope that the alter might hear: “You have been asleep for a very long time and many things have changed but most of the changes have been good.” Tell the alter about the good things that have happened in your life. If, for example, you are safer now than when the alter was probably formed, say so.

Alters that have been buried inside for a long while have been kept needlessly tormented by being cut off from so many things that would give them peace and reassurance. For example, they are likely to have been living in constant fear, expecting to be abused again at any moment because they have no idea that the abuser no longer has access to them. They had thought themselves to be weak and vulnerable and that no one would believe them, because they had no idea that they now live in a much stronger, more mature body and are no longer dependent upon their abuser. Little children are easily deceived and frightened and manipulated and now they finally have you; a safe, loving and wise person to protect and guide them.

You, yourself, will feel more peace and security when an alter feels more loved and secure because of you.

There is yet another good thing associated with the fact that feeling confused means an alter is re-connecting with the real world: it gives you the opportunity to connect with a part of you who has valuable skills and intellectual abilities. It opens the way for you to become more capable than ever.

Anxiety

Because of the trauma people with Dissociative Identity Disorder have suffered, anxiety is distressingly common for them. In their past, they were so often anxious for good reason that it became virtually a way of life – an ingrained habit – making it difficult to return to normal levels of calmness. Even when things are going well they tend to expect it not to last long and minor things trigger a return to anxiety.

Like a useful campfire that gets out of control and becomes a raging wildfire, it is good to have a rational concern about getting too close to a venomous spider but it can get out of control and escalate to an irrational fear of spiders that are a safe distance away and to fearing harmless spiders and even fearing being anywhere there is the slightest possibility of spiders. So it is with all fear and anxiety. It can become an out-of-control habit. It is no more the person’s fault than an innocent child being forcibly injected with drugs until he is thoroughly addicted. Old habits can be broken, however, and replaced by new ones. Nevertheless, like breaking an addiction, it takes sustained effort.

Excessive anxiety can also be linked to an imbalance in a person’s body chemistry and often this can be at least partly rectified by medication.

Another factor is that lack of sleep typically worsens anxiety, and anxiety often hinders one’s ability to sleep, so this interaction can become a vicious circle.

It is helpful to understand the effect of anxiety.

Anxiety acts as an alarm that goes off within us indicating that something is seriously wrong and causing our brain to keep seeking the reason so that it can be corrected.

When, for example, a fire alarm goes off, it sounds the same regardless of whether it was triggered by an actual fire or by a technical malfunction. Since a false alarm sounds exactly the same – highly unpleasant – as when it is triggered by genuine danger, it is very tempting to feel disturbed about the alarm continuing, even when you have checked and confirmed that there is no danger. So it is with your anxiety. Unfortunately, for as long as you suffer from this anxiety you will just have to keep reminding yourself that it is a false alarm and get used to it blaring and being unpleasant and refuse to treat it as if it were real.

When anxiety is a false alarm it is not only unpleasant, it can confuse us spiritually. Anxiety feels like a torturously guilty conscience that keeps nagging away no matter how utterly we are divinely forgiven, cleansed of all sin and made holy by faith in Jesus. God has promised to forgive all the sins of everyone who puts his/her faith in the forgiving power of Jesus’ sacrifice. Since anxiety is far too incessant to be ignored, however, it is hard not to slip into believing the persistent, overwhelmingly strong feeling, rather than keep stubbornly believing God’s promise. Add to this the fact that anxiety keeps telling us that something is seriously wrong when everything is actually fine, and the foundation to our entire relationship with God – believing that through Jesus our past failings no longer hinder our relationship with God – is under attack. The spiritual confusion can be serious if we cave in to believing our powerfully deceptive feelings rather than resolutely clinging to raw faith in both Christ’s eagerness to secure our full forgiveness and his ability to do so.

You will be filled with guilt and anxiety but the key is to learn to live with such feelings and neither fear the feelings nor believe them. This will be a tough battle because your feelings will be very intense and seem so real, but all of us are called to live by faith and not feelings. For much help with this battle, see Scrupulosity: Worried by Severe Guilt Feelings and keep following the main link at the end of each page for as many pages as it takes. Most likely, you will need to keep returning to those pages.

For those suffering from an Anxiety Disorder, living by raw faith is much harder to do than for other people, but it is like a coach making his star athlete engage in much heavier training than others – it will end up making him stronger than others, even though during tough training sessions he will seem much weaker than those who are lazing around. It is like a runner lugging heavy weights on the back – it feels as if it is weakening him but it will actually make him stronger as he keeps struggling on.

Anxiety can even cause us to keep thinking things that we desperately want not to think, such as harming a loved one or being hounded by horrifically blasphemous thoughts. For help with this, see

When a Christian Can’t Stop Thinking Blasphemous Thoughts.

For valuable help with anxiety see Fear, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):Christian Therapy

For still more about the anxiety that traumatized people suffer, see the next two sections below.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

It is possible not to recall the actual events but Dissociative Identity Disorder is a consequence of severe childhood trauma. Since Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is likewise a consequence of having suffered trauma, it is usual for people with D.I.D. to suffer from PTSD. In fact, especially because therapists tend to be more familiar with PTSD than with D.I.D. they often detect it in people before discovering that they also have D.I.D.

Fears, Phobias

You could easily have alters who fear things that are no longer a concern because he/she is unaware of things that have happened since the trauma that formed him/her. For example, the abuser might no longer have access to you, your body might now be more mature and stronger, and your maturity means you are no longer dependent upon abusive family members, abusers are more afraid of you now that you are older, because your testimony is more likely to be believed.

Here is a small, condensed extract from Fear, (PTSD): Christian Help & Cure. You really should read it all.

Fear is a horrible feeling; but it is just a feeling; not reality.

When it is based not on present danger but is a mere carryover from a past experience, fear is deception. It is a seductive temptress enticing us to cheat on God and ditch his beautiful plans for our life. It is a disgusting con man cheating us out of our rights and duping us into letting him keep robbing us of peace, achievement and fulfilment.

Fear is a prison taking away our freedom; a bleak dungeon that we dupe ourselves into pretending is a cozy comfort zone. We block off the open door with a Home, Sweet Home placard and shiver in the cold; choosing chilly isolation instead of sunny reality; preferring to feel sorry for ourselves than become achievers.

Fear is an ever-encroaching desert; a cancer that keeps spreading to healthy parts of a person.

Fear is an enemy, but one we can defeat; winning for ourselves immense glory. Others might not realize the magnitude of our victory in breaking out of our cruel confinement into normality, but all of heaven knows and it will forever hail us as heroes.

The appropriate response is to rise up in anger and refuse to let fear rob, cheat and bluff us any longer.

We might have been born in defeat and mediocrity but we have been born again as children of the King of kings. This makes us divine r

oyalty; princes and princesses of the Lord of the universe, not slaves to feelings.

Empowered by supernatural union with our crucified Lord, let’s die to the soft life and rise to the glory of our calling as Christ’s champions. The journey to Christlikeness is neither quick nor easy, but as Christ sweat for you in Gethsemane, so you can sweat for him – and win eternal glory.

You’ll find much help, comfort and encouragement in Fear, (PTSD): Christian Help & Cure

Fearing You’re Going Insane

It is common when people become aware of their different personalities, for such unusual things to occur that they begin to fear they are going insane. Here are the most common causes of this understandable but groundless fear:

You might have discovered you have done something without any memory of having done it. Selective memory is hardly surprising, given that a major reason for developing D.I.D. is to keep certain memories from the rest of you. It will be resolved when alters gain confidence in sharing memories and in cooperating with each other.

You might suddenly lose certain abilities. If, for example, a baby alter took over, you might not be able to walk, but only crawl. Or you might lose awareness of where you live and get lost driving home from work. You will regain these abilities.

You might, for no apparent reason, feel emotionless or feel strong emotions, such as fear or anger. This is because another alter’s emotions, for whom the feelings make perfect sense, are washing over you.

You might feel like a different person, with different likes and dislikes, and perhaps even feel you are the opposite sex.

Most things likely to initially disturb you are simply due to changes in the mix of alters who are close to the surface of your consciousness. Alters differ in their abilities, emotions, memories and personalities. Especially if something spooks them, some with will withdraw and others will come to the fore. As healing progresses, however, things will stabilize, with alters feeling safer and stronger.

A part of you physically hurts you, perhaps when you are asleep. If you had distressing experiences as a child, it would not be unusual for part of you to still be reeling in unhealed pain. (In fact, a part holding on to this pain is probably what keeps you from being so aware of it.) Self-harm is a very common response to extreme inner pain.

A part of you keeps sabotaging your good intentions. You might for example, want to break a habit but a part of you cut off from your understanding, sees no point in doing so.

When you begin to heal, peculiar things like the above might happen more than even before. This is not because you are getting worse but because you are growing in awareness of things that had previously been blocked from your consciousness, and because alters are becoming more hopeful that it is safe to reveal themselves to you and that they can heal.

People fearing they are going insane because of symptoms related to D.I.D. can relax. Dissociative Identity Disorder is not an illness, insists Psychiatrist Dr George Blair-West.

He declared on national television about someone with over two thousand alters, “There is nothing wrong with Jeni’s human mind or any other person who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. Their mind is just coming up with an incredibly sophisticated, clever solution to a scenario that most of us could not begin to understand or relate to. . . . The thing that seems to push the mind to do this, more than anything else, is realizing you have no way out – that nobody is going to come and get you, nobody’s there to save you: you’re on your own and you have to come up with a solution that is entirely of your own . . . and you are doing it in this incredibly sophisticated way, which is why this condition is not an illness.”

Dissociative Identity Disorder has given Jeni what he calls superpowers, one of which is her memory. “She has a memory unlike yours or my memory. Her alters are living in different time-space realities, effectively – particularly those younger ones. . . . It’s almost like being able to click on a folder in a computer, open it up and read it, without any decay over a 40-year period,” he said on Australian national television.

Let’s look at it another way:

In a sense, we all have multiple personalities and switch between them according to our circumstances. We would act differently, for instance, in each of the following circumstances:

In the presence of a head of state When alone with our spouse On a night out with the girls/guys When playing with children When depressed

In other ways, too, everyone has “multiple personalities.” For example, we might say, “My heart says one thing, but my head says another.” The ability to see things from such different perspectives can be a significant asset. When indecisive, we speak of being “in two minds.” When dieting we are not sure which part of us will win – the part wanting to be thin or the part wanting to keep eating. In Romans 7, Paul devoted almost an entire chapter detailing the battle within himself between the part of him wanting to obey God and the part wanting to indulge himself. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15).

So having multiple personalities is not nearly as abnormal as it first seems. Moreover, dissociation is normal. In order to focus on the task at hand, all of us sometimes temporarily put unpleasant memories out of our minds, or tune out to such distractions as background noises. It is just that for some people this natural tendency is done to a greater extent. For them, shutting off awareness of certain distressing things is done so effectively that a separate consciousness forms within the person, with part of the person knowing, feeling and thinking some things that the other part does not.

Traumatized children – especially those who are artistically and/or intellectually gifted – have a remarkable ability. They are able to soldier on by splitting into a highly functional part that has little awareness of the extent of their suffering, and other parts that are much more aware of what happens out of the public eye. These people have, from an early age, stumbled upon an ingenious mental strategy for coping with situations that are almost beyond human endurance.

When people first become aware of their alters, it is often quite a shock and some rather weird things can happen, such as doing various things without any memory of having done them. At this stage of the healing journey, you might begin to wonder if you are going insane. Nevertheless, this is the time when one is actually becoming saner than ever, because one is finally getting in touch with his/her inner reality and no longer living in denial.

Remember that you have survived when things were at their worst and things will slowly improve from now on.

Some alters have self-images and beliefs that might seem bizarre to you but it is consistent with traumatized children who were cruelly tricked and lied to and then kept cut off from reality. It is also consistent with precious children whose reality was so appalling that they felt compelled to try giving themselves a break by creating a fantasy world.

When you were too young to cope with all that was thrown at you, you cleverly kept your mind compartmentalized so that parts of you could focus on various necessary tasks without being overwhelmed by consciousness of other mind-numbing events. Now that the crisis is over, the walls are beginning to come down so that you can become whole.

To quote from Healing your “Inner Child” / Inner Pain:

Even though having alters is a common, well-documented reaction to childhood trauma, it is usual for people, upon first discovering that they have alters, to find it deeply disturbing and seek repeated assurance that they are not going insane. In reality, for any of us who have alters, the discovery is a very healthy sign and a significant step toward far more peace, joy and fulfilment than we have ever known.

As explained in The Positive Benefits of D.I.D.: Does Multiple Personality Disorder Create a Superior Brain?, I believe that Dissociative Identity Disorder develops the brain beyond what it otherwise would have, such that when a person begins to heal from the disorder, having had multiple personalities actually turns out to be an intellectual advantage. Of course, until healing commences, having Dissociative Identity Disorder is primarily a disadvantage because and each alter (and the host) has access to only a portion of the person’s brain.

Feelings of confusion as well as strange symptoms are normal for people recovering from D.I.D. From time to time, a friend of mine would ask the Lord what was wrong with him. Each time God would simply but very tenderly reply, “You have alters. I’m healing you.”

It is most unfortunate that in old, ill-informed circles, schizophrenia was mislabelled “split personality.” This grossly inappropriate name might cause someone unfamiliar with psychology to wrongly imagine there could be a link between schizophrenia and what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. There is not even a superficial similarity. Unlike schizophrenia, Dissociative Identity Disorder does not cause bouts of insanity, nor is it helped by medication (although someone with D.I.D. might have additional conditions like depression that might be helped by medication). The differences go on and on.

Here’s some advice from a protector alter to other protector alters that everyone with D.I.D. could all heed:

If someone breaks a leg, there is a critical period when a crutch aids healing but the time arrives when continued use of the crutch hinders the final stages of healing. You have been that crutch that has contributed greatly to healing your alters and now you have reached that thrilling point when your role needs to change. There are still many responsibilities, but your sacrifices for your alters have brought them to the point where they can now help. And you need to let them do this, both for their sake and for yours. Trust your alters. It will release them into their final stage of healing and will do the same for you.

It’s likely that alters are fighting with you and the tug-o-war is getting you nowhere. Let go of the rope. Just let what is happening happen. You cannot disappear. Neither can you go insane. Your D.I.D. will ensure that your mind has the flexibility to adapt, and God is with you. You are on the brink of something you have always yearned for but never dared hope could be yours. Let go, my friend, and ride to fulfilment, resting in the safe arms of God.

What is happening to you is exceptionally healthy. Your mind is birthing something new and wonderful. Be at peace.

Wanting Revenge or Justice

Christians & Raw Emotions: Hate & Anger at Injustice

Revenge!

Divine Vengeance Against Those Who Hurt You

Christian, Be Angry! And Sin Not

Serious, Do-It-Yourself Healing of Inner Pain, Anger or Distress from Trauma, Bereavement,

Divorce, Breakup, Abuse, Tragedy, Etc.

Grief and Regret

It is common for an alter to grieve missing out on things that other alters enjoyed, such as being around when their children were growing up. Help them understand that in time they will be able to fully access all the memories and experiences other alters had and it will be exactly as if those experiences were their own. So this is not something to grieve about because the loss is only temporary.

Integration

Dissociation is about losing control. You lose access to parts of your brain with their associated abilities, knowledge, feelings and so on. It means you lose some of your intellectual capacity. You lose your ability to reach your full potential.

Dissociation also involves keeping parts of you ignorant of the knowledge that would bring you relief from inner pain, turmoil and needless distress. Whereas smart decision-making hinges on knowing as many of the relevant facts as possible, dissociation keeps any part of you from having full access to all the facts. Dissociation often occurs at unexpected times; causing its victims to suddenly be left in the lurch without relevant facts and/or abilities. It can result in being falsely accused not just of stupidity but of lying.

Ending dissociation, however, has nothing to do with losing any alters. On the contrary, since each alter has exclusive access to a different part of your intellectual capacity, losing any alter would keep you permanently dissociated. This renders it ludicrous to suppose that healing would involve losing any of your alters. Each alter is a precious, irreplaceable part of you.

Since healing involves strengthening every part of you, real healing of D.I.D. has as its goal the empowering of each alter. It is setting them free from the fear, confusion, isolation and ignorance imposed on them by their abuser(s) who had cruelly deceived and manipulated them. It is ending torment so that each alter becomes more fulfilled and beautiful and responsible than you ever thought possible. It is helping each alter to be happier, more peaceful, competent, and more in charge.

Keeping alters suppressed or isolated causes them to be bitter, hateful and weird. The more empowered they are, the more Christlike they will be and the more like each other they will be. This happens because they will become increasingly aware of current circumstances and of your understanding of Christ, and the damaging lies the abuser(s) told them will be exposed as lies. They will become increasingly skilled at accessing each other’s abilities and this will increase their desire not to dominate other alters but to love each other and enjoy their companionship. As this process develops, uniting with other alters will no longer seem scary but will be increasingly natural and it will in no way diminish them but will cause them to feel more secure, more important and more alive.

The more that alters heal, the more alike they become. Young alters grow up, those who think it is the 1990s understand what year it really is and adjust to everyday living, those who hate God gradually fall in love with him and become kind and supportive, those who desperately need to express themselves will have had ample opportunities to do so, those who thought they were the opposite sex find peace with being the gender they really are, and so on. This means that, over the years, integration will get easier and easier and will eventually begin to occur naturally, unless there is some hold up in the healing progress.

Alters are very sensitive and cannot be pressured into integration. Any attempt to force them could cause them to retreat into long-term hiding and result not in healing but in a serious setback. The goal should not be peace or an easy life but to maximize your abilities so that you can achieve the most in life. This will end up bringing the greatest fulfilment, for which you will forever be grateful.

Integration is two or more alters merging. It seldom starts with all alters uniting but with just two. The next merging might not involve those two but another pair of alters merging with each other. And so on. It has nothing to do with getting rid of an alter you do not like. On the contrary, it is liking an alter so much that you choose to be with him/her 24/7. It is like moving from friendship to marriage, only the union is even deeper.

Because some people mistakenly think that integration is getting rid of an alter, they suppose that no longer being aware of an alter means integration has occurred, when all that has happened is that the alter has gone into hiding.

Integration is not the end of an alter but the end of the disadvantages of splitting. It is the end, for example, of times when you find yourself floundering due to the loss of information and abilities when a certain alter is not around. It involves continually having the other’s strengths and abilities and companionship and support. The price is that it also involves full awareness of the other’s pain and distressing memories. You cannot enjoy all the benefits without this. The downside seems scary but it will lessen the other’s pain and distress because the isolation is broken and the hurting alter will enjoy the healing benefits of your strength and your ability to see through misconceptions (such as self-blame) that cause most of the on-going pain.

You will probably prefer to work on the other’s healing before integration so that there is much less pain to unite with. Nevertheless, delays are like a cripple fearing the pain of healing surgery and so putting it off. Yes, a certain degree of pain is temporarily avoided but for longer than necessary the person ends up suffering all the problems associated with being crippled.

On the other hand, the ideal time to get a machine working to perfection is when it is in pieces. It is then that every part can be carefully examined, cleaned, polished and restored to full function. In fact, fully restored parts fit together better than rusted parts. Likewise, while a person is still fractured would seem the ideal time to build up each part so that when they are all put together the person is fully functional and, in fact, able to reach peak performance.

Integration is not all or nothing. You can have trial integrations where you try it for just a minute or so and then separate again. As you gain confidence, you can gradually increase the length of time you are united.

Here is some more help, condensed from another webpage of mine:

The Goal of Integration

In The Positive Benefits of D.I.D. I explain why I believe people with Dissociative Identity Disorder have superior brains. So I don’t believe the goal of integration should be to become entirely like people who have never had D.I.D., any more than the goal of a genius should be to lower himself to having “normal” intelligence. (I do not have D.I.D. myself, so I say this without bias.) The goal should be for all the alters to be identified and work harmoniously as a team that dearly love and support each other, know each other’s secrets, and have full access to each other’s memories and abilities. I do, however, think it best to try to avoid having some sleep while others are awake. For all of them to sleep at the same time and likewise to be alert at the same time will avoid unduly exhausting themselves and having to struggle through on less than full intellectual capacity.

Toward Wholeness and Integration

A child alter, who had been formed because of sexual abuse, was greatly disturbed. She who had seen herself as a little girl had come to realize that she had the body of a mature woman. This alarmed her because she believed that a sexually mature body would make her more subject to unwanted male attention. She found comfort when I explained how having an adult’s strong body, and the authority and believability that goes with it, made her less vulnerable to molesters. But she was still upset by the thought of no longer being a child.

To point out that she had not only an adult body but also an adult mind had seemed a small step to me, but not to her. Until then she had seen herself as a little girl trapped in an adult’s body. She found the thought of being a full adult horrifying because she saw it as being robbed of her childhood and of her dreams. After me telling her this too early and too bluntly, she had coped primarily by living in denial of what I had said.

A couple of weeks later she asked, “How old am I really?”

I looked to the Lord, anxious not to make another mistake.

I began a careful explanation of how she had come to exist as an alter and concluded with, “It’s most unfair that you’ve been dumped with all the pain and have missed out on all the good memories, but Jesus suffered so that he could take all your pain upon himself. You got left behind when the rest of you grew up but God wants to make you happy by helping you catch up so that you are reunited with the rest of you. That way, you’ll get all the good memories that you deserve – the memories that until now you have been robbed of.”

I ended by specifically answering her question. “I believe that at present you are emotionally four years old. I’m not sure what your mental age is, but you certainly seem smarter than a four-year-old. And you have the beautiful, strong body of a mature woman. These three things are out of step. It’s no wonder you’re confused. It would be confusing for anyone. But God wants to heal you so that all of you is the one ‘age’ with happy memories and no confusion.”

Usually, when little alters fear losing their childhood, it indicates that they have not yet received all the fun, love and nurturing that they need. If this need were left unmet, the effect of deprivation during childhood would continue and one would expect the whole person would go through life suffering from unfulfilled emotional needs. If so, the Healing Lord understands and would not want these little alters to miss out on what is needed for emotional wholeness. So little alters need not fear. God will not rush things. He does not want them to miss out on the nurturing they long for.

As I continued to explain things to her, peace began to settle upon this dear alter. She no longer saw herself as a separate person trapped in someone else’s body but as a vital part of one person. Now she saw herself as having been tragically disconnected from the rest of her and that union with her other parts represents true fulfilment and the end of confusion. She was not the freak that she had seen herself to be, but simply someone who, through no fault of her own, had been deeply wounded emotionally, and God wanted to heal that wound. Becoming one with her host was not the frightening loss that she feared but the gaining of new memories and abilities. It was discovering that she was a key piece in a jigsaw puzzle that would never make sense without her. It was a healing, a coming home, a restoration, becoming whole.

Just a little while later, this alter began finding herself merging with two of her fellow alters whenever they met with Jesus. I asked her what it felt like to be one with the other alters. She replied that it made her feel stronger, more capable and more alive. The experience took nothing from her; it added to her. It enriched her.

It is natural for alters to mistakenly suppose that integration would mean they would cease to exist but not only will they never cease to exist, integration means gaining more abilities – the abilities of the other alters. There is no loss. It is a win-win.

One woman with D.I.D. put it this way:

As much as I hate having this disorder I often used to worry about who I would be without it. Through your webpage, I’ve learned it doesn’t have to be that way. I would be more, not less.

A woman had many alters who were excitedly discussing forming into groups of two or three and merging with each other. Some, while not committing themselves to permanency, were actually trialling it for a few days at a time. This had come about naturally, without the slightest input from any counsellor. Many of them would have loved to merge with their protector alter whom they greatly admired. The protector refused, fearing that merging would result in gaining each other’s weaknesses. She worried that gaining any weakness would lower her ability to protect the alters, should that need ever arise. Moreover, she did not want to inflict her own weaknesses upon any other alter.

I told the protector that I expected that each would gain the other’s strengths and that weaknesses would disappear, unless all the alters she merged with had the same weakness. At my suggestion, she asked God about it. He always comes up with brilliant insights. He replied that it would be best to wait a little while before merging with any other alter and that she should focus first on merging with God. This alter was already a very committed Christian but at times was a little tentative in her relationship with God, as is typical of someone whose trust has been seriously violated by humans. Of course, God’s response is very scriptural. For example:

1 Corinthians 6:16-17  . . . For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

The alter concluded that by merging with the perfect Lord, her own weaknesses would cease to be an issue.

Bursting Out of Confinement

In Heidelberg Zoo, Germany, a bear was confined in a small cage for years. Every day it would continually pace up and down as far as the cage would permit – twelve paces up and twelve paces back. Finally, the bear was released in a large new enclosure, but to everyone’s dismay, all it would do was walk back and forth, twelve paces up, twelve paces back.

Alters are like that. It’s not that an alter does not have the skills or memories or emotional ownership of certain events that a fellow alter has. It is simply that such alters are living in denial, or mistakenly think that they are more limited than they really are. They can access all the memories and skills of the full person but they believe themselves incapable of going beyond the narrow confines of who they think they are. They usually see themselves as having no existence before a certain age, nor beyond a certain age. They need to be freed from the confines that this self-image imposes on them.

As alters begin to heal, they will occasionally draw upon memories or skills outside of the age they imagine they are limited to. For example, an alter who thinks she is a child might display maturity or vocabulary or a skill that the person never had at that age. Or an alter might speak of an event that occurred before he was formed as if he personally experienced it. This often happens so naturally that alters are unaware that they are doing it. They can be greatly helped if, when you notice it happening, you gently draw to their attention that what they are saying or doing indicates that they truly are the full person that you have been telling them they are.

Since alters exist in an attempt to protect other parts of the person from at least some of the trauma of deeply disturbing experiences, they retain the deepest emotional reaction to experiences. Not surprisingly, they also sometimes seek to protect the rest of the person by keeping unpleasant information to themselves. Although these secrets seemed horrific when the alter formed, the host has since matured physically and probably spiritually, or circumstances may have greatly changed. For any of these reasons, the secrets are likely to be less upsetting to the host than the alter supposes. It is also not uncommon for an alter to be trying desperately to keep a secret without realizing that the host already knows about it.

Metaphorically speaking, it was as though artificial roadblocks had been set up in her host’s brain dividing the real person into several alters. Neural pathways from each alter to the thoughts, memories, viewpoints and so on of the rest of the person are all in place and full access can easily be established once each blockage is removed. As an alter stops holding on to secrets and looks to God for healing, the blockage slowly dissolves, thus allowing the alter, simply by thinking, to access memories and skills that the alter hadn’t known he/she had. As this begins to happen, the alter becomes increasingly like the whole person, with just a slightly different perspective unique to that alter.

Once confidence is gained and an alter reveals his/her secrets to the rest of the person, a significant reason for the alter to exist as a separate entity vanishes. To unite with other alters the alter must also like those alters and (if the alters are older) not be afraid of growing up or losing his/her individuality. The alter is then likely to merge with one or more other alters and the process continue until all the alters have integrated into one person with the full power of all the memories and skills and perspectives of each alter combined. The order in which merging takes place might surprise. For instance, a teenage alter might happen to have more in common with one in its thirties than one in its twenties and so the teenage alter could merge with the thirties alter, while the alter in its twenties temporarily continues to remain separate. Moreover, it is often a case that opposites attract. Alters with a particular weakness will often team up with those who can compensate. A timid alter might team up with a courageous one; an alter lacking a particular intellectual skill might team up with one that has that skill, and so on.

Hindrances to Integration

Total healing and full integration might take years but the good news is that throughout your healing journey you will enjoy the benefits of continual improvement. Like a young athlete who will become world champion, you will keep getting better and better even though you cannot expect to reach your peak in just a few months.

The first step toward full integration is for alters to reveal themselves. By reading my webpages you will come to understand that each alter needs to feel safe enough to do this and that upon first surfacing, each alter usually has so much pain – and sometimes bad habits – that the host and already-surfaced alters are reluctant for a new alter to manifest himself/herself. So the surfacing of alters is usually a slow, drawn-out process and yet even then the person usually feels that it is happening too quickly. There are various factors affecting how long it takes for all alters to be identified. An obvious factor is how many alters a person has. People who have suffered long term Satanic Ritual Abuse could have over a hundred.

Even with daily counselling and only thirty alters who get on well with each other, it is likely to take at least a year – probably much longer – for all alters to be identified. Moreover, I know of no way of ascertaining that every alter has revealed himself/herself. Often there are alters that no other alter is aware of, and even if an alter knows, he or she might feel obligated not to reveal another alter’s existence without that alter’s permission. Thankfully, invaluable moves toward integration will begin long before all alters have appeared. As alters mature, they will become increasing alike and various alters will team up.

Beyond the mere surfacing of alters, full integration is also slow. What particularly makes integration a drawn-out process is that each alter must want it. Just because certain alters have been conversing with you for months and have undergone significant healing does not mean that they do not have further serious issues that need to be worked through before they are ready to integrate. There are so many potential obstacles to an alter wanting integration. Let’s list some of them.

An unwillingness to accept present-day reality.

The person’s real gender, actual age or current marital status are examples of reality that an alter might not be ready to accept. Desperately wanting to keep living in denial would make such an alter recoil from uniting with an alter who accepts reality.

An unwillingness to accept truths known to another alter.

An alter might, for example, be so desperate to love and respect a certain person (a parent, perhaps) that it refuses to believe another alter’s experiences that shatter the myth – perhaps by proving that the person was an abuser. For such an alter, integration would involve gaining memories that the alter refuses to accept. So the alter will remain separate until it is willing to accept this.

Wanting to monopolize access to a certain skill.

An alter’s concern that she might end up ignored or undervalued by other alters could move the alter to keep other alters dependent upon her by monopolizing access to a certain skill or useful memories she has. Integration involves each alter having full access to all memories and skills, and until she feels more secure, such an alter will refuse to let this happen.

Fear that integration means ceasing to exist

 I have explained earlier the benefits to alters of integration.

Maintaining a different sleep schedule from the other alters

 An alter might prefer to avoid stress by sleeping at times when the rest of the person is interacting with people. Young alters need to play and might be given no opportunity to do so except when everyone else is asleep. Another reason for a different sleep schedule might be that an alter feels it is safest for at least one alter to be on guard at all times against any possible attack. The result is working in shifts with alters, rather than seeking to work in unison.

Going into hiding whenever things get difficult.

Leaving it to other alters when things get tough will obviously hinder integration.

Not wanting to share another alter’s beliefs or hopes.

For example, cultivating hopes and dreams might be important for one alter but might appal another who is terrified of the pain of dashed hopes.

Falsely blaming an alter for past traumas

One alter, for example, might believe that another acted inappropriately and so blame the alter for what happened. Such ill-feeling will block integration.

Resentment over genuine offenses

An alter might in the past have “hit” or insulted another alter or have wished an alter were dead. Unless alters forgive each other, they will not merge.

Intolerance of immaturity

 This can take many forms. For example, when allowed to manifest herself, an alter formed as a baby might need diapers or want to be bottle fed. Older alters could strongly resent this. Or older alters might want to watch movies that would terrify children, or do other things inappropriate for children and hence upset their own young alters. This will hinder healing and so block the path to integration.

Moral objections

An alter might swear, use porn, smoke or do something else that another alter strongly objects to on moral grounds. Until resolved, this will divide alters. There might be serious disputes over choice of food, clothing, music, use of money, and so on.

A significant person in the alter’s life might not want integration

 Alters might resist integration because they fear that a counsellor or loved one might like them less after integration. Or the loved one might be consciously sabotaging integration because he or she prefers to relate to someone with alters. The loved one might, for example, be so keen to have children that he or she encourages alters who think they are children to continue to be childish.

Alice, whose alters are nearing full integration, writes:

One of my alters set some ground rules that we all follow:

1. Do not take out your hurt on other alters. They are hurting too.

2. Do not use force on another alter. Each of us knows what it is to be manipulated and treated roughly, so we do not perpetuate this by treating others badly.

3. Do not make fun of another alter. We all know how hard it is to communicate and how confusing it is when alters first surface. We have all been trapped by isolation and this expresses itself in many forms. Let each alter come to terms with what she is experiencing and to communicate it as best as she can.

4. Above all, never betray an alter. Anything confided to you, including the mere existence of an alter, is a sacred trust that must not be revealed to anyone without the alter’s full permission.

 These rules have helped alters become friends. It starts from the moment any of us become aware of an alter who is new to us. Remembering how lonely and confused we once were, we immediately offer her our friendship and remain faithful and kind to her, no matter how unpleasant she might initially seem. If she hurts us in any way, we refuse to take it personally but compassionately realize it is because she is delirious with pain. We must love as Christ loves, in full faith that such courageous love will slowly melt the heart of a bitter, angry alter; transforming her into a beautiful and precious friend. And on the way to this transformation, we teach her our ground rules.

Maintaining those ground rules has made us dangerous to hell. United, we fight together as an army against everything that would seek to bring us down. We can read each other’s minds and function as one, switching around to let some rest or to let each other’s strengths be used to achieve what is needed. The most critical thing, however, is to be submitted to God in all of this.

It is very empowering for an alter plagued by a particular weakness to be integrated with one who does not have this weakness. So often the most is achieved by the merging of alters that have quite different strengths and weaknesses. Nevertheless, in the entire healing process, and particularly with integration, divine wisdom is needed. Keep seeking God for his timing and which alters should merge with which.

 Overly Worried about Other People’s Problems

Alters are used to taking upon themselves the emotional pain and concerns of their host in order to spare the host. This habit can cause some alters to try to do this for loved ones but there are two obvious difficulties with this that should be explained to the alter:

1. Since the loved one is a separate being, the alter’s emotional distress will not relieve the other person’s distress.

2. It is easy (especially for an alter) to see someone else through the prism of one’s own experience and pain and mistakenly think the person is far more

Programming

The term “programming” might seem mysterious and perhaps even overwhelmingly powerful, but it isn’t. It simply means training and you can reverse it.

If you were hungry and about to eat delicious food, your mouth would water. In other words, you expect to eat and so your body automatically prepares for it. If every time a bell rang it was immediately followed by being a delicious morsel, you would expect to eat whenever you heard the bell and so your mouth would water in anticipation.

This is a simple example of programming. Your mouth watering at the sound of a bell would be beyond your conscious control, but the effect of the programming would fade if the bell kept ringing without you being given food. Eventually, the sound would cease to have any effect on your mouth. Even before the effect wore off, if you know that the bell will no longer be associated with eating, you would not be fooled intellectually, even though it might take a while for the effect of the programming to wear off.

Certain evil people have used the principles of programming to try to manipulate their victims and this information has been shared among some abusers. As demonstrated in the above example, however, programming does not mean a person will always remain intellectually duped by what happened in the past. Neither does it mean that a programmed response – a physical or emotional reaction, such as flinching or a racing heart or panic or fear – will be permanent. For example, every part of a person can come to realize that he/she is now safe and that there is therefore no need to fear. This knowledge will not immediately stop the programmed emotional or bodily response but it is the first step toward it. A person can then remind himself/herself not to believe the feelings the stimulus triggers and to calm down. A person can even train himself/herself to associate relaxation or even pleasure with the stimulus that used to induce fear, so that gradually the negative completely disappears.

Forgiving Yourself: How Despising Yourself Can Hinder Your Healing

See Survivors Share the Secrets to Inner Healing from Sexual Abuse

See also:

Forgiving Yourself

How to Change Your Self-Image

Various Types of Alters

No part of a person is the full person. The full person is, of course, the sum total of all his/her parts, including parts that the person is unaware he/she even has.

I do not consider any part of a person more important than any other part. Consider a family. Only a perverse, dysfunctional family would consider a baby disposable or less important or less worthy of love than another family member. A baby, despite currently being able to do almost nothing, usually receives more care and attention – not less – than other members. Moreover, a baby will grow and might eventually become stronger or more talented or more intelligent or earn more money than any other family member. (And, with D.I.D., baby alters can grow up very quickly.)

Another consideration is that alters differ as to what they are particularly skilled at. A skill that you think unimportant might suddenly become vitally important. For example, if you are in danger of getting lost, a good sense of direction is more important than mathematical ability. In another situation, however, that could be reversed.

I will not attempt to categorize every possible type of alter, but awareness of certain types can significantly speed healing. Not everyone with D.I.D. has every type mentioned below, but being aware of the possibility could enable you to discover and help such an alter much quicker.

The Host

Sometimes, the host thinks of himself or herself as the ‘real’ person and considers alters as inferior ‘add-ons’. The introduction to this section shoots holes in this attitude. In reality, the entire person (host included) would quite possibly never have survived childhood had it not been for the sacrificial effort of many alters who, by bearing physical and emotional pain and keeping secrets from the host, freed up the host to focus on everyday life.

The host is simply the alter who nowadays has control of the body more often than any other part. It is not unusual for other alters to sometimes temporarily take over the body. With some people, a host might lose control for years and another alter assumes the role of host. The host might have been relating to the outside world every year of the person’s life or the current host might have been formed later in life and took over because the previous host could not handle the stress.

Protector Alters

Protector alters shield other alters by putting on a tough front and trying to force to back down anyone they see as a threat. Tragically, they suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which causes them to often see danger where there is none. The easiest understood instance of PTSD is a soldier who upon returning from the front line to the safety of home is still on hyper-alert, unable to sleep properly, diving for cover whenever a car backfires, and so on.

So protector alters are hyper-vigilant and much more suspicious than current circumstances require. The alters that the protector seeks to shield usually accept the protector’s assessment of danger, and even if they do not, the protector still usually tries to get them into hiding at the first perception of danger.

Unfortunately, protectors often hinder healing by assessing counsellors as threats. They can also perceive their host as a threat and so keep alters and/or information hidden from their host. A host can be perceived as a threat if he/she might blab things the protector believe should be kept secret or if the host is seen as not cautious enough, and so on.

Even though these dear alters might initially hinder – or even sabotage – the healing process, they are not enemies. Even if their help is sometimes misguided, they are highly traumatized, self-sacrificing alters courageously trying their utmost to keep the person safe.

Do all you can to work with, rather than against, a protector. Continually strive to get the protector on-side and to allay all the protector’s concerns. Even, as much as possible, empower the protector by giving him/her the right of veto on critical decisions.

As the protector gradually learns to trust you, much progress can be made in discovering other alters. Once on board, protectors are very valuable allies in the healing process.

Sleeper Alters

You have probably heard of sleeper spies or terrorist cells that remain inactive for years until they are needed. Some people have certain alters like this. They remain inactive – sometimes for many years – until a crisis alerts them that they are needed and then they come to the fore. They can use various means to alert them of a crisis. It might, for example, be whenever a person engages in more self-harm than usual. Another way is to be remain close to a certain alter and be activated when that alter is particularly distressed.

Some of these alters are helpers that support others when things become unbearable for one or more of them. (By coming to the rescue, they might sometimes perform the admirable task of averting the formation of a new alter.) Other sleeper alters are protectors who are quite strong and can overpower other alters to take over almost completely during what they perceive to be a crisis.

Being sleeper alters means that they are likely to have been somewhat out of the loop while the rest of the person has been healing and so they might be less in possession of all the relevant facts than some other alters. Even more perplexing is that in order to exercise the authority they feel the emergency demands, they might pretend to be another well-liked or powerful alter. The result can be very confusing for the rest of the person.

So if a person suddenly starts acting out of character, a sleeper alter might be the reason.

The difficulties in helping sleeper alters are obvious when you consider that since the very nature of a sleeper alter is to remain hidden until an emergency, they appear only rarely. Moreover they see their key function as supporting/protecting the person by remaining hidden and unconnected most of the time, so even if discovered, they feel the need to return to hiding.

Obviously, it is very important to try to convince a sleeper alter that it is now safe to remain out of hiding indefinitely. Such alters usually find not returning to hiding very scary, however, and can feel that by remaining out they are being unfaithful to their role and letting the whole person down. Not everyone has an appropriate domestic situation, but where applicable, the simplest way I have found to break this impasse is for the alter to fall in love with his/her marriage partner. They crave love and understanding so much that when they find it, they will be very reluctant to lose it again by going back to ‘sleep.’ Another possibility is for other alters to give the new alter lots of love, understanding and comfort. Of course, the ultimate friend and counsellor remains Jesus. Encourage alters to let Jesus share his heart with them. He will reassure them.

Abusive Alters

Often when one takes the time to get to know alters who are being harsh to fellow alters or hurting them or even sexually abusing them, it becomes apparent that they actually believe they are helping. They might think, for example, that they are toughening up the alters, thus making them less vulnerable to abuse. Or, in the hope of saving the person from even worse abuse, they might enforce an abuser’s oppressive rules about never crying, or punishing them for doing anything the abuser might object to. Often the abusive alter is unaware that the abuser no longer has access to them, and so the alter continues the oppression unaware that there is no longer the slightest need.

As always, it is important to try to understand what motivates an alter and to gently help the alter see through any misconceptions the alter has.

Introjects

An introject is a rather amazing type of abuser alter. Until the misconception is exposed, an introject not only acts like an external person the survivor knew, but every alter within the survivor – including the introject alter – actually believes that this alter is not an alter but is the real external person. At first, this seems astounding but it is consistent with the wide range of different things that alters can think of themselves, such as thinking they are animals, aliens and so on.

Often the external person the introject identifies with is someone who abused the person who has this alter. Since some external abusers trick their victims into thinking they are Jesus, survivors of such abuse can sometimes have an introject alter who believes he/she is an abusive ‘Jesus,’ and this could cause massive confusion for other alters if they presume this must be the real Jesus. Even though not all external abusers realize it, introject alters who mimic their external abusers usually enforce the external abuser’s wishes upon the alters when the abuser is absent. In fact, this can continue even after the abuser has died. Some introjects report back to the abuser as informers.

Not surprisingly, introjects have themselves suffered immensely.

It is important to bring introject alters to the point where they finally realize they are part of the abuse survivor and not part of the external abuser. Helping them discover the current date and that they are in the body of someone other than the abuser can help. Once introjects become loyal to the survivor, the person’s safety is significantly enhanced. I suggest you do not get sidetracked now but elsewhere on this website I have a detailed record of counselling an introject.

When Alters See Themselves as Someone or Something they are Not (Also Introjects – Alters who Assume your Abuser’s Identity)

Until they begin to heal, alters usually think they are someone other than who they really are, even if it is simply believing they are younger than their physical body. What they believe about themselves can sometimes seem quite bizarre but, usually, it is something that ends up giving them a tiny bit of peace by helping them feel a little less vulnerable. So helping them realize that they are now safe is a big step toward them accepting their true identity.

Some alters (called introjects) even assume the identity of a real external person and even convince other alters that they are that person. (The above link explains how other alters can easily accept as true whatever alters believe themselves to be.) Usually, the person they see themselves as being is someone who impacted their lives, and it is not uncommon for that person to be their abuser. This belief helps them feel more secure but has the unfortunate consequence that they will act like their abuser in the way they treat other people and alters.

Since, until healing begins, alters tend to get left behind and not be aware of the passage of time, the actual person they believe themselves to be is likely to be much older than the introject realizes and may even have died. Pointing this out can sometimes help introjects realize they are not really that person. They also need to know that it is now safe to be who they really are.

Discovering they are not who they thought they are will not only bring them peace, it will also help any other alters who were being frightened or tormented by introjects assuming their false identity.

Sleeper Alters / Assassin Alters

You might think yourself incapable of having such alters, but at some point of desperation in your childhood, you might have unknowingly formed one, even though for most of your life your attitude has been very different. If you have any sleeper alters, the extremes they could go to means you very much need to become aware of them. Disturbingly, however, they will probably see it as their duty to deliberately conceal themselves from you.

You might have heard the term sleeper cell – a tiny group of secret agents who are ready to act as saboteurs for a foreign nation or terrorist organization but, to avoid being detected, they remain inactive until required. This is the sense in which the term sleeper alter is used. Many alters act a little like this but I am referring to those who are sometimes called assassin alters. This latter term suggests the extremes to which such alters might go if they perceived the situation as sufficiently desperate. They see themselves as the last line of defense in protecting the system (all the alters and the host) should life become utterly intolerable. The fact that they have most likely already tolerated atrocities that would have provoked many people to violence proves they are not malicious. Nevertheless, they remain ready to take a life (including that of their whole system) if they perceive the threat as sufficiently extreme.

If, at some point in your (perhaps forgotten) past, you were being treated abominably, you might have feared that if things got any worse life would become so intolerable that the only solution would be suicide or physically attacking the abuser. Suicide, however, could have terrible consequences for one’s loved ones, such as dependent children (whether siblings or one’s offspring). Killing someone in what you believe is self-defense would likewise cause great distress to one’s loved ones. For example, the abuser might be a family member whose death could have highly undesirable consequences for one’s loved ones, or courts might not see it as justifiable homicide and you being jailed could adversely affect those loved ones.

Even if never acted upon, it might be somewhat reassuring to know that one has as a last resort the possibility of ending one’s torment by suicide or killing the abuser. Such reassurance would be lost, however, if one feared that concern for one’s loved ones might prevent one from taking that option, should it ever be needed. A way around this dilemma is to create one or more alters who deliberately keep themselves ignorant of the outside world – even having no contact with alters who might pass on such information. That way they cannot possibly form any emotional attachments that might weaken their resolve to fulfil their mission in a desperate situation.

The obvious challenge with remaining ignorant of the outside world is how can a sleeper alter know when he/she is needed? The alters’ solution is to train themselves to respond to certain triggers that they believe will indicate an extreme emergency. An example might be when a certain alter engages in an unusual amount of self-harm or displays some other sign of being unusually distressed. Once triggered, the alter will do everything possible to assume full control of the system. In order to exercise the authority the alter feels the emergency demands, he/she might pretend to be another well-liked or powerful alter. The result can be very confusing for the rest of the person. So if an alter suddenly starts acting out of character, a sleeper alter might be the reason.

It is also possible for abusers who understand D.I.D. to deliberately create sleeper alters who they train to respond to a trigger, such as a code word or some indication that the abusers’ vile secrets are about to be exposed. In response to such a trigger, the alter might take drastic, undesirable action under the false impression that it is required.

One might later escape the abuser’s influence or change one’s mind about suicide or violence ever being acceptable but this alter will be so isolated that he/she is unlikely to be aware of such changes.

The obvious concern is that no one is likely to know of the existence of sleeper alters until these alters are triggered into taking over, at which time they might panic and act rashly. A further concern is that their ignorance of current circumstances is likely to cloud their ability to act wisely.

Since a person can have several sleeper alters who are unaware of each other, I know of no way of being sure that people have discovered all of their sleeper alters. It is helpful, however, to be aware that sleeper alters might unexpectedly be triggered and if this ever happens, you will need to rapidly update the alter with all the information needed to respond in a safe, informed way.

Once a sleeper alter is discovered and the immediate crisis is averted, it is clearly important to avoid further unnecessary crises by doing your utmost to convince the alter that it is now safe to remain out of hiding indefinitely. Such alters usually find this very scary, however, and can feel that by remaining out they are being unfaithful to their role and letting the whole person down. Do all you can to persuade such an alter that there are always better options – or at least options more pleasing to God – than suicide or murder.

These alters crave love and understanding so much that when they find it, they will be very reluctant to lose it again by going back to “sleep.” So it can be particularly helpful for other alters to give the new alter lots of love, understanding and comfort. Another significant help is for the alter to become more aware of loved ones such as children, or to fall in love with his/her marriage partner.

Of course, the ultimate counsellor remains Jesus. Encourage alters to let Jesus share his heart with them. He will reassure them.

The good news is that sleeper alters are very strong and resolute and this quality makes them valuable assets once they are integrated.

‘Astral Travel’

‘Astral Travel’ Astral travel is the occult belief that some people’s spirits travel while their body remains elsewhere. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder can sometimes experience things that seem like this but the most accurate explanations lie elsewhere.

There are several possibilities.

1. When someone seems to astral travel to you

Often when people feel as if they are being attacked by an abuser who is not physically present, it is actually because an alter is suffering a flashback – the replaying of an exceptionally vivid memory of past abuse. During a flashback, the memory can be as powerful as if it were physically happening at that moment.

A less common experience that could be mistaken for an abuser accessing someone by astral travel is the actions of an introject alter. Introjects are alters who have taken on the identity of an outside person (often an abuser). Since they have become convinced that they are this outside person, and they share the same brain as other alters, their fellow alters will see the introjects as being that outside person.

The least likely scenario is that, while toying with your mind, a demon has taken on the identity of an outside person.

2. When you seem to astral travel

This is usually an alter’s vivid imagination – often a habit initiated as a mental way of giving oneself temporary relief from an oppressive situation or mental torment. Occasionally alters are ‘programmed’ to do this, i.e. trained by their abusers to imagine this upon the occurrence of a certain trigger.

The final possibility is what the Bible calls a vision. Consider, for example:

2 Corinthians 12:2 I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I don’t know, or whether out of the body, I don’t know; God knows), such a one caught up into the third heaven.

The Advantages of Having D.I.D.

I don’t have D.I.D. but I would be over the moon if I discovered that I did because it would mean I have greater potential than I ever dreamed and now that I know it, I can look forward to reaping the benefits. For help in understanding this, see the following:

Your Amazing Potential if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder

A Superior Brain? The Positive Benefits of D.I.D.

Should Alters be Baptized Individually After they Accept Christ?

I commend any alter who would like to be baptized and it is entirely each alter’s decision. But if another part of the person has already been meaningfully baptized is there any necessity for more baptisms?

Suppose someone has a hundred alters (quite a realistic number) and is married. Although it might take some time for each alter to come to terms with it, eventually every alter should individually accept that he/she is married. But if only one alter were present at the wedding ceremony does this mean there should be a hundred weddings?

Legally, it takes only one wedding to make a person married. Wouldn’t God see baptism the same way?

Moreover, as the alter heals, repeated acts like this become superfluous. Healing involves each alter sharing their memories, so that eventually one alter’s memories become the other alter’s memories. After all, they all form the one person. So if an alter gives her life to Jesus and another alter has been baptized, memory-wise that baptism eventually becomes as real to the alter who was not originally present as if she herself were baptized. Another consideration is that separate baptisms would seem to reinforce division between the alters. Nevertheless, there is no right or wrong in this. It is each alter’s decision.

Why so Much Emphasis on Jesus/God?

After four years of intense university study I qualified as a psychologist. I discovered, however, that there is far more power in Jesus than psychologists are able to tap into and so I abandoned a career in psychology (where I could have got far more money) and got a low grade, part-time job to support me while I devoted myself to what I am certain is helping people far more effectively and on a much deeper level. I have done this totally without charge at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars (in terms of lost income) because I consider helping people to be far too important to make any money – not even covering my own expenses – from it. My website is enormous. It is so extensive because I keep nothing back that I could charge for. Everything is there for free.

Life is too short to waste it on trying to offer superficial cures. My entire website is unashamedly Christian and my approach has helped not only large numbers of people, it saved my own wife’s life, who insists she would otherwise have killed herself.

Over and over and over I have observed that the people with Dissociative Identity Disorder who make huge advances in their healing are always those who have helped their alters to make Jesus their best friend and to share everything with him and learn from him. He is by far the best therapist in the universe and he alone fully understands everything that every alter has suffered and has supernatural solutions.

Links Related to the Entire Webpage

How to Comfort the Hurting

What happens during our most impressionable years – such as having our trust seriously violated, being regularly abused by one or more parents, having our self-esteem crushed or being made to feel unlovable – can seriously challenge our ability to believe that God is so different to the way those close to us have treated us. Some pages that can help are:

God as Tender as a Mother?

How to Change Your Self-Image