poly-fragmented vs. "traditional" DID

[orek]

Hi, cew, welcome to MM.

Yes, the number is, I believe, over a hundred parts (though that's obviously a random number picked for the sake of a generalized identification), and layering of parts is also a common factor in polyfragmented systems. I don't think there's an official diagnostic term or criteria for it, but there does seem to be awareness of it among those who study and treat DID--to a limited degree. I hope there's more understood about it in the future, even though it's just a variation of DID and technically treated the same. The nuances in presentation, etc., is better recognized and treated if understood.

[FreyasSpirit]

We want to say thank you for this thread. When we were initially looking through this forum, this was the thread which really caught our eye and made us decide to join. Before this, we had never encountered the term polyfragmented.

We were very curious about the term and came back to it several times over the last 6 months. Last night, we were questioning whether the term applied to us and came to the conclusion that our fascination with the term meant that we probably were (we had similar fascinations with gender and plurality before we discovered our identities with those). We had previously come to the conclusion that we would not be surprised if there were >100 of us (2 years ago, we did not know we were plural, 1 year ago, we had 6 identified, a week ago, we had ~30 identified and were still growing). Last night, we decided to search for subsystems by asking. In response, we had three Ericas and four Helixes respond. Today, we tried to split innerworld and were able to split into three shadows for the Ericas and later four birds for the Helixes though we were not able to hold either split for longer than 15 seconds. In our mind, this confirms the existence of subsystems and allows us to reasonably confidently use the label "polyfragmented" on ourselves.

Acquiring additional labels is incredibly helpful because it simplifies the language we need to describe who we are. Thank you orek and others on this thread for introducing us to this term and helping us discover more about ourselves.

[nats]

so glad you found this helpful FreyasSpirit! it's always great to know that even an old conversation can resonate with someone else and potentially help them

[The People]

Agree with Nats there is no need to drop it. It is good to bring it out so others can relate to it. We tried a map early on. forget it. also poly-fragmented.

once I read something or heard it in a group. it said that it is not relevant to compare what happened to you to what happened to others. what is important is your own story and your pain. how you will move forward from it. something like that. Nobody can compare themselves to others as we are all unique. even here where we are all multies I am different from everyone. I hav commonalities and friendships but I am still me. Or us.

Good to hear from you BTW!

[MakersDozn]

We're glad that this thread is helpful and that people are continuing the discussion. For one thing, it's helpful to people, and secondly, we're learning a lot.

Mary and Allegra

[FreyasSpirit]

The term polyfragmented continues to draw us towards it and fascinate us. We just went through and did our best to define the term and wrote out many of our thoughts about it.

The definition bit:
Polyfragmented dissociative identity disorder is a subtype of DID which fell out of popular use and the medical literature after the 80s. Definitions vary, but the core component of polyfragmented DID is the idea that rather than being made of a few headmates, systems are made of a large number of fragments. It is not uncommon for there to be over 100 or even over 1000 fragments, leading to many to define polyfragmented DID as having over 100 headmates. These fragments can combine together into more fully formed headmates, often leading to subsystems of fragments. As a result, the existence of subsystems, or even subsystems within subsystems, is sometimes used as part of the definition of polyfragmented DID.

The rest of it can be found here:
https://medium.com/@FreyasSpirit/on-identity-fluidity-85bb0b43253a

[The People]

For us PF is like a play with a large cast. There are the main players, number doesn't matter. Then there are those who have walk on parts. They walk into T, say their part and go back into hiding. They still count because every one is relevant, every incident is relevant. It is just that, with PF especially not all of the alters are around all the time. Therefore it would be hard to map them. And they don't want to be mapped anyway. Somebody might find them. Or us.

[nats]

yes, well said.

[Melodie]

Hi, I am a year late to this conversation but I'm very grateful that it is here. I too have polyfragmentation and can relate to a lot of what is posted here. Like not feeling like I quite fit in with the 'traditional' DID groups. I don't think the actual number of parts is a determining factor of whether one has polyfragmentation, I think it's more of a consequence of a certain kind of abuse. In my own case I feel like it happened that way because of torture abuse as a very small child by a parent. With torture I felt like I had to keep splitting very fast [like every second] to try and get away from the pain, so these splits were not about creating different identities but were more about creating different realities or timelines or something ...

I do have some other more traditional splits but the majority is fragments within fragments within fragments and yes, they seem to very much come and go and only appear maybe once or twice etc. I have tried mapping my system but that never works because I would need a very complicated moving 3-d model to do it and even then I wouldn't come close.

So thank you for all your posts from a year ago. It helps to feel validated.

[The People]

I like the 3D model idea!

[nats]

a moving 3D model with built-in tracking! LOL

[The People]

Awesome!

[VioletPeach]

I'm this way...I didn't know it was different or unusual ... :/ My main host Alter that is writing, Violet, has her own separate Alters. We have a football stadium full of Alters and a portal where they get to us. Our therapist just told us that he separated us into groups of people where were made to be Multiples "on purpose" and those who weren't. I've just recently noticed that I (as an Alter) have my own Alters. I feel very unsettled about this. And this post.

~Violet

[nats]

it's unsettling when you first start to notice it, but at some point you get used to it. if you relate more to the 'parts of parts' model rather than the 'there are 3-5 of us in here and we don't always cooperate' model, then you might want to do some reading on poly-fragmented DID at some point.

A lot of what's out there is presented in a very extreme way so don't let that put you off too much. we're all the way we are for our own reasons and being poly-fragmented doesn't automatically mean you that you must have experienced a particular kind of abuse.