Comment by Mike on March 14, 2009 5:48 pm

Karen,

If one alter of a multiple personality chose to kill someone, would another alter prevent it? What if you were injured, unable to defend yourself as you lay in a street somewhere dying? How would your alters protect you at that point? Would you have an out of body experience in an altered state or as yourself?

Mike

Dear Mike,

Interesting questions!  Multiplicity is a coping mechanism that creates alternate personalities to protect and help a victim of child abuse to survive.  If I were put in the position to defend myself and an alter became angry enough to want to murder someone, then yes, another more balanced alter would bump him out and take over to create a better sense of calm to prevent that alter from acting on any inappropriate thoughts.

If I were injured and in an altered state, I would still be injured.  If I should lay dying on a street somewhere far from help, then I would die.  Alters don’t prevent unfortunate things from happening.  What alters do is help the victim survive, through temporary dissociation of the trauma, until they are safely able to move forward.  The creation of alters is not exactly an out of body experience.  In a multiple’s world, an alter will switch in and out as needed, and only to defend and protect.

Thank you for your questions, I hope my answers are of some help.

Karen