by Cara and Noelle
I keep a list of everyone which includes their ages and important facts. Often I just kind of get a strange set of feelings that I have never had before, so I will write in a journal about the feelings, and a lot of times I will see the "new" person. Usually that person has been there for a long time. When it's a real new person, there is usually a feeling of being mildly disoriented. Many of the people I find have been watching life go on for a while and find their roles fairly easily. However, someone who has been hidden for a very long time will experience disorientation worse than that experienced by a truly new person because her frame of reference is life so many years ago.
From the beginning when I first started discovering the others, I had kind of an unwritten rule that they all needed to work together. Originally, I thought there were twelve. Now I know that there are more because I've been finding more and also have had additional events which triggered the dissociation mechanism. It definitely helped that the original twelve who I knew about worked fairly well together. There was only one, Chelle, who was difficult to work with. She was angry--very--but she was also very young. She is 11. I had gotten to know some friends at the time who were really helpful during that stage because Chelle and some of the others felt really comfortable writing and talking to them. I let Chelle have her space to be mad and make friends the way she wanted to, and eventually she started to work with the others.
So by the time I started finding others, the habit of communication was already established. That communication is the first big step toward getting them to work together smoothly.
Today I have meetings in my mind where everyone gets a chance to say anything they want to say. I sit down at the computer, and the whole meeting gets transcribed as if a secretary is taking minutes. There's discussion that goes on in my head all the time, but a lot of times I forget about things if they are not written down. It helps to be able to go back and see what's been done.
My selves tend to group according to personality traits and/or experiences or shared memories. Often these groups have a hierarchical structure so that if the leader is not functional for some reason there is a back-up person to take over or things get delegated down the line. I have written out descriptions of the groups, and I update these when the need arises. Sometimes a person changes groups or disappears, in which case I assume a "merge" (my term for a sort of integration) has occurred. Merging is scary and sometimes not permanent. There are days when I feel "whole," but I have found that during times of extreme stress I revert back to the familiarity of the world inside my mind.
Some people find that getting to know their parts is very difficult. Some parts may be reluctant to disclose information about themselves, knowledge, or memories. Often this is because the person is not ready or yet able to handle the intensity of emotions associated with the memories or the implications of the information which is hidden. Never pressure a part of yourself. All of your selves need to feel accepted and valued in order for good communication to develop.