DID I talk to "alters", but they seem like deceased separate people,from the trauma

[mil]

Okay, this may sound really weird. I know there's "re-livings" and flashbacks, but this is different than those. It's not so much static, past events... it feels present and interactive: It feels like those same people (who didnt survive the trauma, when I did) are in my head in real-time, and we talk.

Maybe I'm just recreating their voices, remembering details as they tell them to me. My memories tie in with theirs. A desperate attempt to hold onto the deceased from my trauma? Keep their memories alive? I'm open to this, but it doesnt feel this way.

Is anyone else experiencing something/anything similar??

 

[arfie]

I think I animate my memories of people. It is like I have enough of their voices and body language, etc., recorded in my brain to conjecture full, animated conversations with them. I do believe it is conjecture, though. I don't believe I am very accurate at creating lines they might actually use in real life. I call it, "My puppet show."

 

[Deleted member 1860]

It doesn't sound like "alters" as alters are a part of who you are, and are a result of a fragmented personality. You're talking to real people who died, correct?

It sounds like your trauma was a one time incident, but you don't say at what age. Alters usually arise as a result of severe childhood abuse.

 

[mil]

I'm not asking for an interpretation of my experience. I'm seeking additional individual experiences to compare it to. Please respond only if you have an experience to share.

 

[bell]

@mil, we need to know more information as to whether these voices are the voices of real people who died or of alters themselves in order to help you.

I'm sorry, but your original post for this thread doesn't explain which one it is... And as these are completely different scenarios that would need different treatment, questions regarding clarification are trying to help you.

And if they are alters from a fractured identity, how can you tell that they are "dead" instead of a part of your psyche?

 

[franciemarnie]

If they died, you could be talking to them and they to you in spirit - in my opinion. I talk to loved ones that have gone on. I hear and see them too when I am in deep meditative trances once in a while.

 

[Ronin]

Have you tried asking yourself how does it make you feel, and in what situations they appear, are stronger, what relation that's got to your life? Things like that - not as much what these fragments, voices, and such, *are*, as what kind of states spark them to happen, and what's it bring out of you?

Can't tell you what it is you're experiencing. Creative mechanism of coping with survivor's guilt, your own thoughts/parts about the trauma you suffered and people you've known, spirits, something else entirely. But in my experience getting at what that is may wait for when you're in a bit more sound space. First try to get at how it influences your life, reactions, emotions, *now*.

 

[mil]

yes. Thanks, I think that's what I'm wondering. Is how to tell a spirit communication from a "split off part" communication. Talking with my therapist, it seems I have a quite a bit of both.

Some feel like friends, just minus a body. They take over from time to time, (like people say an alter would do) and say we survived the trauma where they didn't. I remember when some of them died. I was there.

I have 50+ named parts/spirits/programs. Still getting to know my inside world. I'm not sure what a split off part is/feels like? Dont think I know my self(real self) at all. Alter or all that is strange to consider. I mostly interact with spirit friends since they're more animated, and come forward.

The programs are definitely not a live, feeling thing. They have names, feel like computers (remembering our choreography/habits), seem to pick up when we have no idea what else to do. Or are too dissociated.

Trauma sure creates an internal mess.

 

[mil]

Thanks, franciemarnie, yes I'm in a deep meditative space when I talk to them. And they help me piece together what happened, accurately too, as I seem to know things I would not know otherwise? Im new at this.

 

[Ronin]

@mil, if we assume spirit is someone that's 'not you', likely deceased, person, and 'part' simply a portion of person's consciousness, then the difference basically is other people x yourself. But in practical life, when you're some way effected by both, it's not gonna help much. Consciousness is consciousness, tracking and understanding the source of it may not be the biggest deal of it. When there's a couple of other issues that need addressing to stay functional, and move forward.

Similarly I don't know that focusing on 'real self' is all that helpful. You are real. People change. Nobody is exactly the same person they were five minutes ago, yet they're still themselves. Real enough. You're already struggling with dissociation and identity issues it seems; you really don't need to go deeper the hole with doubting reality or some existentialist crap like that.

Saying, it's not a race. Pause. Breathe. Ground. Find what helps you, find what makes you healthy, what keeps you safe, what helps you connect to yourself and other people, all those big questions about meaning and reality will wait and get answers eventually.

(Not meaning to sound dismissive or harsh, I'm just having a hard time conveying some life lessons into advice.)

 

[macca]

I don't know if this helps at all, but I am discovering dissociated parts (it's still unclear). I think one of them is dead, but she is a younger version of me. I only know of her from dreams. I think she is around when I'm very dissociated. In my dreams, she doesn't do anything, and is completely grey; she kind of follows me around somehow. I haven't been able to interact with her, because at the time I know it is pointless, due to her being dead. This sounds harsh when I write it, but I don't mean to be. I'm not frightened of her at all. She died as a young child, but even though she's dead she grew older with me, but is always younger. Strange. Maybe she isn't dead, though I've always been convinced that she is.