Most of this group were created by The Source to help build our internal personality system and help us function.
The (3) Control Group (all male)
Created by The Controller they emerged at age 45. Their role was to help us control some of our rage about past abuse events. They kept us from totally losing it, something which we thought we would do especially when we first began therapy. In the years before therapy, they weren’t so successful. There were times when we really did lose it and had major violent meltdowns.
The Controller (or Grandfather)
Emerged at age 39 even though he really is older than our biological years. We don’t know exactly how old though. He was created by The Source to help build our personality system, The Web, and to help build our internal world, especially the city of Kereth. He has always known a lot about us. Some of us see him like a lifeguard on the beach. He sits up high and can see everyone. The littler ones Inside often call him “Grandfather”.
Katy Ann (used to be called Kitten)
Emerged when she was 8 years old. We were 39. She was created by Othel to deal with sexual abuse by our stepfather. She was a very angry and mean-spirited girl back then but has she ever changed. She became a spokesperson for the teenagers at one point. She has formed a strong bond with Lance and our son, Graham. She also became a very kind and intelligent young woman, with some strong ideals about the environment and the homeless. She is quite a gift to us. She is now 24.
Her and Julia were the first to begin drawing. While Julia does more “technical” drawing, such as drawing faces, Katy Ann likes to do more abstract things with lots of colour. They have sometimes combined their abilities and done pieces together. They are also very good friends.
Graham calls her “Spam Kid”.
The Keepers of Maura:
Emerged at age 38. There are four of them. “Maura” is what we call our mind and within Maura lies The Storehouse. The Keepers take care of this because this is where there are boxes and boxes of memories. When we wanted to access memories of abuse in therapy, The Time Traveller would go to them and ask for the memories.
They were created by The Source.
The Connector (male) makes sure we make all the right “connections” when it comes to memories. We talked early on about dissociation and how we remove ourself from the present moment. Dissociation is when we separate out different parts of the experience and store them in separate places. We are then not able to process and understand what is happening. And that’s what you need to do for survival. But in our years of therapy we needed to reverse that chain. We began to pull out from storage all those pieces of experience – what we saw, what we did, how we felt – and bring them together, “associate” them, to understand fully what has happened to us. The Connector makes sure all of those pieces are there for us to associate.
The Duster (male) had a very simple role – to keep it all clean. To keep the boxes of memories free of the layers of dust that build up over years. To make sure our memories were always at the ready for when we could bear to look at them and feel them.
Mysteria (female) is sort of the leader of this small group. She has guarded the outside of The Storehouse over all of the years, ensuring that no one, Inside or Outside, can get access too soon, before we were ready. She has always known what was in those boxes although not the more specific details. She had a rough idea of all the things that happened to us in the past.
The Organizer (female) does simply that. Organized the boxes of memories into some kind of order so they would be easily accessible to us.
You may wonder why we split The Keepers up into 4 alters. It seems as if these jobs could easily have been done by one alter. But ... this is about compartmentalization, separating out the components of memory, breaking them up into smaller bearable pieces. Having 4 different alters helped do this so that each one did not have to handle more than they could bear.
Letty (previously called Haughty Letty)
emerged when we, and she, were 39. She was created by The Source. Letty is a unique alter and has, for many years, felt that she shouldn’t be part of our system. She was not created because of abuse. A friend of our mother’s was a nurse and was training other nurses. She asked our mother if we would be a “patient”. Unfortunately, some of being a patient was invasive and it triggered us to create Letty. Our mother’s friend was not trying to hurt us AND she did not know how vulnerable we were. Although Letty felt she was not like the rest of us, we have told her over and over she was created for a good reason and she does belong.
Letty is very prim and proper, tight lipped, seriously religious. She has had a hard time with the way we dress, the way we think, the way we are. She would prefer we go to church and not swear so much. But over the years she has loosened up a bit. Once in a while she will say “oh goodness!” about something that has happened. Now, Stoene Boy says the same thing and it makes us laugh. Even better, it makes Letty laugh as well. Over the years she is accepting her role in the system and we are glad.
The (2) Mimics, one male, one female, are just that. Mimics. They mimicked and held a lot of the more negative things adults said to us over the years. They reminded us of how to “keep in our place” and not become too bold or outspoken. They wanted to make sure we did not forget who we really are – a “worthless, stupid and willful child”. Fortunately, in our years of healing, we learned that these were lies and that we needed to be rid of them. When they emerged they were only 5 years old. They are now 16. They were also created by The Source
n’i has such a cool name. It means “Not I”. She was 12 when she emerged and is now 24. She was created by The Source to deal with our cousin who wanted to teach us about sex. Ariel was created for the same reason. n’i is very much a Dickensian-type urchin, runny nose and scruffy-looking.
Old Self (or Grandmother) is not just old but absolutely ancient. We believe she somehow carries our ancestral memory, knowing who and where we came from. She lives in a forest, in her own little home, but always welcomes any of us who want to visit her, usually seeking some kind of advice. She has always been Patience’s main advisor. She is a healer and very wise. Like The Controller, she also helped build the system and Kereth. The two are very close. She was created by The Source.
Shell: The Censor (female)
Emerged later than the other parts of Shell because she was in a separate group. She was created by The Source. Her role was to censor information between alters as well as to and from Outsiders. It’s almost as if The Censor was a more subconscious part of Shell. Her more conscious selves or parts (Adult Empty, Miss Normal, Miss Angry) did not have an awareness of The Censor. If they had, they might have been able to bypass The Censor.
The Time Traveller (female) emerged at age 39. If you could only see her. She wears a silver suit and has a very special role. The helps us dissociate (along with The Red) and takes us back in time. She helps us remember all kinds of things, not just the abuse, but other things from the past. She can make us feel nostalgic for some things. She was also created by The Source.
