Unintentional head mates/semi-involentart switching?

[Guest]

Hello, I am really excited to have found this site. This is the only place I have found where this phenomenon is discussed. 

I started experiencing something resembling switching a couple of years ago. The time line and symptoms don't line up with DID and I have been unable to find examples of other experiences of plurality.  

I was introduced to IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy a few years ago, however IFS treats different emotions as separate entities, whereas I feel that these entities are individuals. I have a lot of mixed feelings about whether I am okay with the individuals being separate from one another. I know it would be possible for them to fuse together but I don't know if the process is worth the loss I would feel. I want to learn more about this experience as I have gotten very little professional (or even social) acknowledgement of it. 

 

Would like general advice/feedback/suggestions 

 

also where can I find resources and information on alternate types of plurality?

 

thanks for reading, 

Juniper ✨✨✨

[Stardog System]

November: 

 

I would need more context to properly advise you here. Do you have memory loss between 'switches'? Did you have any experiences when you were younger with imaginary friends?

 

Can you remember your childhood? It's always possible you simply cannot remember your trauma.

 

Do you have contact with the "other entities?" If so, what are they like? I would also recommend the tulpa reddit if you're looking for more info or support. There's also a plurality wiki and thriving Tumblr and Discord communities. Hope this helps.

[Guest]

Yes that is helpful!

We don't have much amnesia, just a little for big T Trauma I believe. There is some contact between us, I'm getting better at hearing them although they don't talk so much as have nonverbal opinions. I have sudden complete changes in behavioral and thinking/processing patterns. it started at the beginning of highschool I think? that's when I noticed it. I can remember my childhood to some extent, as much as anyone can I believe. What I can remember is not very clear and I have a lot of unprocessed trauma ("the body holds trauma" type things). 

The one who controls my behavior the most is a rabbit? and sometimes a child although they change forms and ages a lot. They have the role of both protector and little sometimes? The switches are frequently triggered by anxiety and excitement, it can be really hard to control. I can usually switch out of my regular headspace pretty easily, but not back into it. I can hear the little one often, but when they are in charge they do not always hear me. There are a few other entities, these are not as developed and I only noticed them when I started IFS. The main one gets upset if I disrespect them or am resentful. The others don't seem to think about things unless I let them. I don't remember any serious imaginary friends. I have a mental health history, what I would call fleeting/mild paranoia is the only thing that I know affects perception and processing. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Stardog System said:

November: 

 

I would need more context to properly advise you here. Do you have memory loss between 'switches'? Did you have any experiences when you were younger with imaginary friends?

 

Can you remember your childhood? It's always possible you simply cannot remember your trauma.

 

Do you have contact with the "other entities?" If so, what are they like? I would also recommend the tulpa reddit if you're looking for more info or support. There's also a plurality wiki and thriving Tumblr and Discord communities. Hope this helps.

I also do have a sort of a "wonderland" headspace, there is a beach by a river they go with some of their forms when they are scared or I take them if I need more direct interaction. there is usually the rabbit (who is like a child but also wise? kinda like an angel in old movies) and there is a grade school child (the age fluctuates) there. they both are nonverbally frequently. 

 

I also have always tried to tell people about the different "layers" of my (sub)consciousness. they are all different volumes and how much control and understanding I have of them varies. I also partially switch frequently, where I am a little of multiple headspaces. 

[Lucilyn]

to be honest, you sound like an in-between case that threatens DID claims of being ultra-unique-super-special-REAL-plurality, just plurality possibly associated with or largely affected by trauma, but not their super strict definitions either (which is something my system has been a proponent of for a long time - that plurality is a natural human brain phenomenon that can occur on accident or on purpose or anywhere in between)

 

it's good that you guys can communicate and don't have switching amnesia, however switching unintentionally due to stress/etc. triggers is a disorderly plurality symptom

 

and while most people on the disorderly side will try and all-or-nothing you, I think it's perfectly legitimate to have a mix of disorderly and non-disorderly experiences/aspects to your plurality

 

users here have historically often applied tulpamancy techniques and discussion to themselves even when they're non-tulpa or sometimes even traumagenic origin systems, so I suppose the same applies to you, you can take either tulpamancy(intentional-plurality) or disorderly plurality(DID and such) advice when it seems helpful and applicable to you

 

But yeah, unintentional switching/trigger switching is firmly in the realm of disorderly plurality, so it's not our expertise here on how to deal with that

Just wanted to post encouraging the legitimacy of your experiences, there can absolutely be between-territory/overlap of disorderly and non-disorderly plurality, there's no need to "take sides" or draw strict lines on what can and can't apply to you (even if some people will try to force you to)

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Lucilyn said:

to be honest, you sound like an in-between case that threatens DID claims of being ultra-unique-super-special-REAL-plurality, just plurality possibly associated with or largely affected by trauma, but not their super strict definitions either (which is something my system has been a proponent of for a long time - that plurality is a natural human brain phenomenon that can occur on accident or on purpose or anywhere in between)

 

it's good that you guys can communicate and don't have switching amnesia, however switching unintentionally due to stress/etc. triggers is a disorderly plurality symptom

 

and while most people on the disorderly side will try and all-or-nothing you, I think it's perfectly legitimate to have a mix of disorderly and non-disorderly experiences/aspects to your plurality

 

users here have historically often applied tulpamancy techniques and discussion to themselves even when they're non-tulpa or sometimes even traumagenic origin systems, so I suppose the same applies to you, you can take either tulpamancy(intentional-plurality) or disorderly plurality(DID and such) advice when it seems helpful and applicable to you

 

But yeah, unintentional switching/trigger switching is firmly in the realm of disorderly plurality, so it's not our expertise here on how to deal with that

Just wanted to post encouraging the legitimacy of your experiences, there can absolutely be between-territory/overlap of disorderly and non-disorderly plurality, there's no need to "take sides" or draw strict lines on what can and can't apply to you (even if some people will try to force you to)

I appreciate that!!

that's helps a lot 

[Ranger]

First, I'll share our system experience- I think it will help show how plurality can look very different from system to system in general.

 

Context: our current therapist mentioned we qualified for OSDD (probably 1b), we just turned down the dx to be written down (probably for the better)

 

First, we have what's informally called "emotional amnesia". We don't have black out amnesia or dissociative fugue, instead we have trouble recalling our feelings and can't always remember certain things people say. We can remember events, but we may not remember all of our feelings about that event, or sometimes things that someone said we found triggering. Very inconvenient when trying to describe certain traumatic events, but that's really it. We're thankful we don't have blackout amnesia.

 

Our system structure is pretty unusual, but it's interesting.

 

First, my host, Gray, created cobuds first (without realizing what he was doing). Because of that, we have a mix of endogenic headmates and alters. We also have several cocreation skills down too, such as headmate communication and control over our switching. As a result, we don't have much, if any, communication issues, and we don't have unintentional switching.

 

In addition to that, we decided to represent our trauma parts as alters after we started having issues with splitting. The end result is our alters are parts of us- Gray has his alters, I have my alters, etc. Not all alters are comfortable being seen as parts, it's just what works for us.

 

We consider our alters, but also me, and Gray, to be median. Median is a spectrum- everything from parts difficult to distinguish, all the way to two parts that seem very different but consider themselves to be part of the same entity. Our alters have different personalities, but the main reason why is because trauma stuffed away a lot of our personality to begin with. But our alters still see themselves as parts of us. Stars, our endogenic headmate, is also median, but he's complicated and I want to try to keep things simple first

 

As for separation vs not: it's not required for alters to integrate. There are lots of traumagenic systems who choose to have some alters remain as individuals post healing. We would prefer for our alters to integrate, but we could always talk to them if we really wanted to- it's just focusing on a piece of ourselves and representing that with a thoughtform, that doesn't require amnesia.

 

As for our wonderland- we all have equal control over it, and it's basically just a space where we imagine things. We don't have an inner world, or a seemingly autonomous place that has some amnesia-like stuff going on. I heard you have to put effort into accessing that. We consider that parallel processing, but that's not a term used outside of parogenic spaces much.

 

We do have some ideas about a "layered unconscious mind", but maybe not what you're thinking. We have "parallel space", but we sealed it off for safety reasons (and thank god because one of Gray's alters tried to escape by going there!) We also have a lot of information on Gray's alter's parts. We can usually identify a micro part and say "oh, that's part of Half" or even one of Half's bigger parts! There's also the fact our trauma compounds, so some our triggers are more extreme because there's trauma ontop that amplifies it.

 

There's not much we can say on helping with unintentional switching. We can share what we know about switching from a cocreation perspective, but it may or may not be super useful.

 

---

 

We also found some resources here on general plurality. I got these from the Simply Plural app-

 

https://morethanone.info/

 

https://pluralityresource.org/plurality-information/

 

https://sarahkreece.com/2012/04/23/about-multiplicity/

 

https://powertotheplurals.com/empowerment-project-did101-switching/

 

I hope this helps!

Edited May 19, 2025 by Ranger

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Ranger said:

First, I'll share our system experience- I think it will help show how plurality can look very different from system to system in general.

 

Context: our current therapist mentioned we qualified for OSDD (probably 1b), we just turned down the dx to be written down (probably for the better)

 

First, we have what's informally called "emotional amnesia". We don't have black out amnesia or dissociative fugue, instead we have trouble recalling our feelings and can't always remember certain things people say. We can remember events, but we may not remember all of our feelings about that event, or sometimes things that someone said we found triggering. Very inconvenient when trying to describe certain traumatic events, but that's really it. We're thankful we don't have blackout amnesia.

 

Our system structure is pretty unusual, but it's interesting.

 

First, my host, Gray, created cobuds first (without realizing what he was doing). Because of that, we have a mix of endogenic headmates and alters. We also have several cocreation skills down too, such as headmate communication and control over our switching. As a result, we don't have much, if any, communication issues, and we don't have unintentional switching.

 

In addition to that, we decided to represent our trauma parts as alters after we started having issues with splitting. The end result is our alters are parts of us- Gray has his alters, I have my alters, etc. Not all alters are comfortable being seen as parts, it's just what works for us.

 

We consider our alters, but also me, and Gray, to be median. Median is a spectrum- everything from parts difficult to distinguish, all the way to two parts that seem very different but consider themselves to be part of the same entity. Our alters have different personalities, but the main reason why is because trauma stuffed away a lot of our personality to begin with. But our alters still see themselves as parts of us. Stars, our endogenic headmate, is also median, but he's complicated and I want to try to keep things simple first

 

As for separation vs not: it's not required for alters to integrate. There are lots of traumagenic systems who choose to have some alters remain as individuals post healing. We would prefer for our alters to integrate, but we could always talk to them if we really wanted to- it's just focusing on a piece of ourselves and representing that with a thoughtform, that doesn't require amnesia.

 

As for our wonderland- we all have equal control over it, and it's basically just a space where we imagine things. We don't have an inner world, or a seemingly autonomous place that has some amnesia-like stuff going on. I heard you have to put effort into accessing that. We consider that parallel processing, but that's not a term used outside of parogenic spaces much.

 

We do have some ideas about a "layered unconscious mind", but maybe not what you're thinking. We have "parallel space", but we sealed it off for safety reasons (and thank god because one of Gray's alters tried to escape by going there!) We also have a lot of information on Gray's alter's parts. We can usually identify a micro part and say "oh, that's part of Half" or even one of Half's bigger parts! There's also the fact our trauma compounds, so some our triggers are more extreme because there's trauma ontop that amplifies it.

 

There's not much we can say on helping with unintentional switching. We can share what we know about switching from a cocreation perspective, but it may or may not be super useful.

 

---

 

We also found some resources here on general plurality. I got these from the Simply Plural app-

 

https://morethanone.info/

 

https://pluralityresource.org/plurality-information/

 

https://sarahkreece.com/2012/04/23/about-multiplicity/

 

https://powertotheplurals.com/empowerment-project-did101-switching/

 

I hope this helps!

that's very interesting, thank you for sharing! I will check out those links

[Stardog System]

I would have to agree that OSDD sounds like the best fit for what you're experiencing. Obviously, I'm not a psychologist, but I do have personal experience in this field. I'd do some more research and bring it up with a professional.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Stardog System said:

I would have to agree that OSDD sounds like the best fit for what you're experiencing. Obviously, I'm not a psychologist, but I do have personal experience in this field. I'd do some more research and bring it up with a professional.

Good ideas!