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Originally Posted by Amyjay
That's awesome. It's so cool that he can express himself through art work.
It's important to remember that five year old alters do not literally possess the skills and abilities of an actual five year old. They do possess an element of developmental stuckness as they were split off and separately contained, but some types of memory and learning cross the amnesiac barriers. For instance narrative and declarative memory might be restricted to an alter, but the ability to walk and talk, feed oneself, or even complex actions such as reading and writing or even driving a car might be shared. Or they might not be. It may depend on what was needed.
Just saying that comparing the skills of an alter to a same aged child doesn't work. An alter may be only say 8 years old, but they could either share or "inherit" the ability to do a certain task from other alters, or they could have been practicing an 8 year old skill for 20 years or more. A child alter really isn't the developmental equivalent of an actual child of the same age. .
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I agree and I think it can vary for each person that has DID,some may have alters that are the developmentally equivalent of an actual child, some may not. I don't think it's the same for everyone,depending on the type of abuse and what the alters were needed for,how the system was set up,etc.
I had a variation within my own system.I had some young ones that had no abilities beyond their ages.A 4 year old that was just a 4 year old,happy,playful,carefree,etc. Another 4 year old could read, write,draw and was highly advanced,she could even write poetry. A 6 year old that was more like a teenager that drank alcohol,smoked cigarettes,could drive,etc. I had a young one that behaved as an adult and could take on adult responsibilities as well as an adult can.I won't go into why they needed to be/do who/what they were but I do know that it's not true for everyone that their alters can only possess skills and abilities of a real child of the same age.
And for those that have animal alters too,I don't think they possess just the skills and abilities of an actual animal.