Why Your System Is Ignoring You
(Summary) If you’re sure you’re a system but your alters or parts aren’t responding, it can feel confusing and discouraging. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) involve complex inner dynamics, and there are many reasons communication may not be happening yet. Understanding common barriers—like amnesia, trauma-time, distrust, or unexpected forms of communication—can help you approach your system with more patience and clarity.
So you’re pretty sure you’re a system and you’ve been trying to get communication with your other alters or parts going. But they aren’t answering and you’re wondering, “What’s going on?”
I can think of six primary possible reasons that your system isn’t communicating with you.
The first is probably the least likely reason. A system manager or gatekeeper may not be allowing communication between you and the rest of the system. This is likely because the system manager is concerned that you wouldn’t be able to do your job as an everyday life part if you learned more about your system. They may fear you would learn about the trauma memories and be too traumatized to do your job, leaving the system with a big problem.
Secondly, in some cases, the amnesic barrier is present when you are fronting but absent when you aren’t fronting. In these cases, you are able to interact with the other system members as long as you aren’t fronting. When you front, though, you ability to communicate with them disappears. Your memories and knowledge of them are inaccessible to you while you are fronting, as well, but return to you once you are back “inside.”
Another possible reason your system may not interact with you is, oddly enough, that they don’t know you’re there. As I’ve talked about before, the trauma-holding parts are generally located in the right brain while you are in the left. That is one obstacle that has to be overcome by developing enough connections in order to communicate. A second potential contributing factor is that the trauma-holding parts are usually trapped in trauma-time, especially early in recovery. They are largely unaware of the present and you, as an adult everyday life part, are very much a part of the present.
A fourth reason your system may not be interacting with you is by their choice. That is, they are fully aware that you are there and wanting to communicate, but they are choosing to ignore you or not respond to you. But why would they do that? Most likely, it’s because they are angry at you.
Remember just a minute ago I talked about how trauma-holding parts are usually stuck in trauma-time? They believe it is still the time of your childhood when they (and you) were abused. They don’t realize that you were a child then, too. They see you as the adult you are now and wonder why you didn’t protect them at the time of the abuse. They don’t understand you couldn’t and may be angry that you didn’t.
Reason five that your system may not be communicating with you is that they don’t trust you. They may not be entirely sure who you are (remember, they are stuck in trauma-time) but they do remember how many people have let them down in life. They were likely promised many things that never happened and let down by many people. They may expect the same from you. Why should they put any effort into communicating with someone who, they believe, is just going to betray them the way others have?
And, finally, it’s possible that your system IS attempting to communicate with you, but not in the way you expect or are looking for. You may be expecting word, either in your head or on paper and when you don’t get that, assume they aren’t communicating with you. But they may be communicating with your through emotions, body sensations, urges, memories, dreams, or other means.