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So here's my question:

For those of us whose systems are trauma-based, do systems always develop naturally as a defense and dissociative mechanism? Or is it possible for the perpetrators to *intentionally create* alters to abuse, leaving the original kid unaware of what's going on?

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For Us, that's not how it works - Our abusers didn't intentionally make Us multiple (or create those of Us who have the potential to be abusive). I won't say it's not possible for other systems though, it's just not that way for Us.

I think We were first created as a defense mechanism, and there were quite a few of Us that were unaware of what was going on. When We were older though, We endured more abuse from a "boyfriend" and afterwards, some abusive people in Our system came forward (abusive to other members of Our system inside, not to other people outside) who I think were created to take the place of the people outside who abused Us (and maybe to protect Us from going back to another abusive relationship.

~Bones (with Ash and Mae Ral)

i guess it would be possible to purposly create, or try to create alters.
take RA as an example ... im not going into detail on that because i try to stay away from talking about stuff i dont know, but often, a cults main goal can be to do exactly as you said. intentionally create alters to abuse, and to serve them, leaving the original kid unaware of what's going on.

every situation is different, so its hard to generalise, but in short, yes, id say it is highly possible.

Wow! What an awesome theory! That's something that had never occurred to me. I wonder if anyone on the list has had any sort of experience like this? If so, how did they come about discovering it? I think I'm going to start looking around to see if I can find anything like this that has been documented. If I find anything interesting, I'll let you know.

"Or is it possible for the perpetrators to *intentionally create* alters to abuse, leaving the original kid unaware of what's going on?"

Yes, this is documented in several early articles. I believe Dr. Robert Mayer has a bit about it in one of his books. We don't think much of Mayer for other reasons, but he does include a few bits of information like this.

For example, parents may address their children by different appellations depending on the child's behaviour; e.g., "good Sally" and "bad Sally". In a true splitting situation (from what we understand of it), this could be a factor.

i would say, yes. absolutely it is possible for that to happen.

for us, some of our people were intentionally created for specific purposes by the people that abused us. though we were already multiple by then.

as far as leaving the original unaware of what's going on...again, i do believe it's possible. i'm not sure exactly how it applies in our system. the original child, the one who was born and named, stopped when the body was 3 (i think). severe abuse had started when we were 18 months old, and there was several splits at that point and after. i don't know what happened with the original child or how much she was aware of between the time the abuse started and the time she stopped. but by the time the abusers were creating people for their purposes, the original child knew nothing of what was happening. pam, who was the "host", so to speak, the one who went to school and dealt with the external world, etc. knew nothing about what was happening. but that was part of her design and part of the way the system ran things as opposed to something the abusers did. i guess based on the way our system is set up, teh most applicable question for what you are asking is did the protectors and watchers know what was happening. and while i don't know the details, i would say yes, they probably did.

storyteller

Hypothetically of course, I think it's entirely possible that there are groups of people who have some kind of fairly deep folk wisdom about trauma and its uses (and a perhaps smaller group of people who have tried some scientific inquiry). In fact, given a lot of belief systems that have existed and persisted (such as voudoun) even against the face of colonialism or other pressure, it would surprise me a lot if there *weren't* such groups of people in very small numbers who would have that kind of expertise.

And certainly trauma can cause dissociation and in multiples dissociation can be used to isolate members of a multiple system so that they have only a particular set of experiences, like being only-good-for-rape or something like that.

Whether that *creates* a person or kind of uses a particular person that might have come into life in a different way, is a kind of religious argument I'm not sure about making. :) But I think the results are close enough to say sure: I think it's entirely possible that some people are skilled enough in torture to create that kind of scenario in some of their victims.

However I tend to think of it like gardening: they might be able to take a cutting, and plant it, and prune it and train it and shape it. But the minute they lose access to the garden, the plant may damn well start growing in its own direction.

Shandra

Yes. Not only that, but they may well create those designed to ensure that the "front" continues to be unaware and that those intended for abuse are maintained in a state of compliant readyness.

Such as myself.

Of course, those such as I are as likely to rebel as any other; the putative "rewards" of being in control, yet with no meaningful control and entirely too much time to think about and the situation in parallel makes it an uncertain art at best.

But it has been practiced, indeed, some small hints have even been published; the "amnesiac courior" is an example of military usage of creating a special purpose "split."

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