Was talking with T about why alters aren't all the relative same age given the trauma wasn't continuous. Why young ones are young. Why older ones came into existence at a older age even if the original trauma was substantially over. His theory was that before the age of completed personality formation , we developed alters. We retain the ability. But then why don't we have 50 million of them?! We started looking for the formulating events. For us it seems to be fear we were unable to tolerate. Someone came who could tolerate the pain & fear. So we have original young ones replaced by others. Some were under constant stress such as brought on by academic pursuits & they *grew up*...continued to deal with it as time passed. If at an older age a severe, traumatic event occurrs,. again with intolerable fear & pain, an alter comes to deal with it. That level of fear experienced by those who got to form a single personality is called PTSD, paranoia etc. Some alters continue to exist at the time of their trauma & replacement. Thus they don't know it's over, time has passed, etc. OK, that's our working theory!!! Seems, so far, to be playing out for us!