Understanding Our System

Life has been very stressful for all of us lately, in so many different ways. Just realising we are now 200 and not the 30-40 we thought, has changed so much for us. We now look at ourselves so differently, we have to. We realise we have a near endless supply of resources inside us and if we need someone to be able to perform a task,  we now ask inside to see if we have that person hidden in there somewhere. They are usually there. We are starting to see ourselves as more of a family.
 It is immeasurably hard and confusing. There are so many of them that want to be heard. Some days it is overwhelming and I must ask for only a few to talk at a time as I just cant cope with so many of them at once.
A few weeks ago I heard one of us saying she had had enough and didn't want to be an alter any more. I really didn't know what she meant by that at first. How does she stop being what she really is? After a talk with Diamonds we realised what the problem is.
You see the term 'Alter" is a term created by the medical profession to be able to communicate effectively about DID. It is the shortened version of Alternate Personality. All very well and good from a medical or Psychological perspective. But when you are one of these 'Alters', it infers you are just a part of a person. A piece broken from the 'main or core' personality. This may indeed be true for many people with DID. I know of many that have this Main or core personality, but it is not true for us. We do not work like this, we don't have a core person, nor a main person. Quite simply WE ARE MANY.
When you look at our body you do not see one body one person. Instead you see one body many people. We grow up in a singleton world where the standard issue is one body one person. We are not one of these people, we are many living in this one body, which at times can seem a little over packed. Its about changing how you see things. Instead of Alters we needed to find a word that expressed who we are. Many people in one body, not alternate personalities. Instead of Alter we now refer ourselves as 'Insiders', and those not in our body as 'Outsiders'. It fits well and we seem comfortable with the change.
I hope that this helps people to come to terms with the idea, that we are not merely one person who has these pesky alters, but many people living in one body. We are all equal and we work together as best we can to make it work. We come as a group.