A few questions

What are fragments? Are they different from alters?

On another note, we feel especially broken as of late. Functioning in day to day activities is becoming confusing and difficult.

I'm seeing glimpses of the past. I don't know of that's normal or not. But I see something (something I can feel is awful) but as soon as it's gone so is my ability to know what I just experienced. Is this normal?

fragments is a term from the 1950's. it means a persons personality has been divided into pieces. later one the term was expanded on to designate when someone had unimportant or not fully developed alternate personalities...

example instead of having an alter that experienced a full range of emotions a fragment was one that was just one snippet of an emotion...

the term fragment is rarely used now.

the phrase used now is "less than one" meaning a persons personality has been divided up. instead of having one whole personality a person with DID has less than one personality...

think of the two terms/ phrases like an apple. or orange.

the apple or orange represents one whole personality.
then trauma and dissociation happens which causes that one whole personality to fragment into their alters..

for example someones whole personality divides up into say 8 alters, each alter is considered to be 1/8th of the the whole personality... (basic math when you cut something into 8 pieces each piece is one/ eighth of a whole)

this is the new phrase according to the American Psychiatric association.

its the same thing as saying fragments but better because in this new way set down by the APA it shows all alters are equals and necessary for the whole system and body. (just a new way of saying the same thing from the 1950's, bringing the definitions up to date.)

are they different.... once there was that belief back in the 1950's but here in the 2013 and to the present no they are not considered any different. a dissociative type alter is a dissociative type alter regardless of whether they contain one emotion or many, one memory or many or have one thing they do for the system or many things they do for the system.

getting glimpses of the past here in america thats called flashbacks, memories. with healing yes this is normal for someone to remember the past events, memories and emotions. it shows great progress and in some locations this is called integration. and some places call this PTSD symptoms. not saying its easy. just that its normal for this to happen when someone is healing.

In relation to alters fragments is just a word to describe alters that are very restricted in function or experience. Like some alters function a lot in the world and can deal with a whole range of aspects of life so they can seem "fuller". Others might hold a single aspect of a traumatic memory and not be required again for anything else. Because of that they may not develop further as an alter and not accrue more life experience. I have a few fragmented alters like that. A "fragmented alter" has never been a diagnostic word in relation to DID, its just a descriptive word used to describe an alter or part that has a very specific and limited function.

And yes, what you describe is a normal way of coping with / remembering trauma, whether you have DID or not.