Why Do Fictives Have Backstories?

(Summary) Fictives in DID and OSDD may have detailed backstories involving people, relationships, places, and events that never happened to the body. These experiences can feel like genuine autobiographical memories to the fictive, even though they aren’t historical memories of the body’s life. Understanding how fictional material can provide a framework for an alter’s identity can help you take a fictive’s experiences seriously without assuming their backstory literally happened.

If your system has a fictive, you might wonder where their backstory comes from. Sometimes, it can be unsettling when a member of your system seems to have a whole other life before their time in your system.

Their memories are not historical memories

You might wonder how a part of your system can have memories of a time outside of your system. Just as many systems have an internal world that seems very real, a fictive’s memories or backstory can also seem very real. That is, they are experienced as being real. However, this isn’t evidence that they actually happened, just like we know that there is no literal, physical conference room in your head even though your system has meetings in one.

The brain builds coherent identities

People often use stories to explain or make sense out of experiences. For example, the stories in Greek mythology weren’t factual explanations for the things people observed and experienced, but they provided a framework for understanding them. In the same way, aspects of a fictional character can provide a story or framework that helps make an alter’s experiences, emotions, beliefs, and responses fit together. A fictive’s identity may come, in part, from a fictional character. Of course, some fictives use more or less of the fictional character’s identity than others. And fictives are not limited to the fictional character and may continue to develop beyond the fictional character.

Backstories can carry emotional truth

The events in the fictive’s remembered history may be fictional, while the emotions, expectations, or protective responses organized around that history are very real. For instance, a child who lives in an environment where fear is frequent may identify strongly with a fictional character who survived dangerous experiences and learned that they always needed to be prepared to protect themselves. An alter who develops using aspects of that character might experience the character’s dangerous past as their own history. That history provides an internally consistent explanation for why the alter expects danger, remains constantly alert, and sees themselves as someone who must always be prepared to fight.

It’s real to them

A fictive may or may not recognize that the events they remember did not literally happen to the body. Either way, the emotions and responses connected to those memories can be very real. They may grieve relationships with people from their backstory, feel afraid because of dangers they remember experiencing, or have expectations about themselves and other people that make sense in the context of that history. The fact that the events did not happen in the outside world does not make the fictive’s experience of them unimportant.

The most important thing may be to remember that their backstory is part of how they explain their experiences which, as part of a dissociative system, are likely different from your experiences. You don’t have to believe that the events literally happened in order to take seriously what those experiences mean to them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are a fictive’s memories real?

A fictive may experience their backstory as genuine memory, but that does not mean the remembered events happened to the body. The emotions, beliefs, expectations, and responses associated with those memories can nevertheless be very real and important to the fictive.

Can a fictive believe their backstory actually happened?

Yes. A fictive may or may not recognize that their remembered history did not happen to the body. Their understanding of their backstory may also change over time.

Why do fictives have memories that aren’t in their source material?

A fictive isn’t simply a copy of a fictional character. Their identity can continue developing within the dissociative system, and their internally experienced history does not have to correspond exactly to the character’s original story.

Does a fictive’s backstory represent actual trauma?

A fictive’s backstory should not automatically be interpreted as a disguised record of events that happened to the body. Elements of a backstory may organize or reflect real emotions, beliefs, expectations, or protective responses without corresponding to specific historical events.

Should I tell a fictive that their memories didn’t really happen?

Knowing that a backstory isn’t part of the body’s historical life doesn’t make the fictive’s feelings about it disappear. Rather than arguing about whether the events happened, it may be more helpful to understand how those experiences affect the fictive now and what they mean to them.

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