Respecting middles and littles is very important in system safety, put the alter age above body age.

56 year old alter in a teen body? Still an adult. 6 year old alter in an adult body? Still a child.

Be respectful 💗

top 10 ways to get kids groomed: putting alter age before body age.

i’m going to be speaking about DID here, since i do not have personal experience as an endogenic system, and this is an argument that is extremely dangerous for all communities, but especially the DID community, as many people with DID have survived all kinds of sexual abuse.

a 56 year old alter in a 15 year old’s body is not *literally* 56, because that person’s brain has never been 56 before. your brain doesn’t just become as developed as a 56 year old’s when a 56 year old’s alter fronts. also, your brain doesn’t regress in development and functionality when a child alter fronts.

littles and middles are also more often than not very capable of handling themselves. many of them can drive, go to work, have intellectual conversations, understand complex concepts, and more. because they’re not actual children, they are “stylized packets of adult psyche” (understanding and treating dissociative identity disorder - a relational approach, e. howell). as your brain develops, so do the capabilities of child parts, even if it may not seem like it.

it’s also important to note that it’s extremely anti-recovery to keep your alters disconnected from their bodies by telling them they’re actually adults or actually children, and treating them as such. in a teen body, a 56 year old alter is probably going to be that way because they were abused by a 56 year old, and that alter is an introject of their abuser. that alter does not need to continue terrorizing their system through internally reenacting the system’s abuse and being treated as if they’re an actual 56 year old, they need to connect with their body and realize that they did not deserve the abuse that they’re holding and perpetuating through integration--the lowering of dissociative barriers and amnesia and increasing of communication and cooperation in the system. that alter needs to know that they’re not their abuser, they didn’t deserve to be abused, and that they no longer need to behave this way for them to survive.

same thing with a child alter in an adult’s body; that part is a child, more likely than not, because they were abused as a child, and that child needs to ‘grow up’ in a sense by understanding that they’re no longer being abused, that they are not literally a child, and that they are safe now, and they can connect with their life in the here and now.

allowing child alters to be treated as literal children is a prime way for predators to sneak into the community, whether you like it or not. you HAVE to treat this child alter as a literal child or you’re ‘ableist’, even if they’re getting increasingly uncomfortable and dependent on the minor that they’re speaking to. you HAVE to treat the adult alter in this teen’s head as a literal adult, or you’re ‘ableist’. so you can get them to drink, smoke, and even get them into relationships with actual bodily adults under the guise that this specific alter is ‘literally’ an adult.

this rhetoric is dangerous, and this is not up for debate.

Just to add, in the same way a child alter is a “stylized packet of an adult psyche” the adult alter in a minor body is much the same way. For example, our gatekeeper James was 16 when he split. The body was 5. Him fronting did NOT mean we were 16. We had never been 16 before, how would we know what a 16 year old’s brain was like? He was a 5 year old child’s perception of a kind teenaged boy. AKA he was bigger, stronger, smarter, and protective. He started aging with the body once we hit that 16 year old mark because that made sense to us. He didn’t need to be 16 anymore, he could age with the body because he now had the relevant experience of someone in their mid 20s…because the brain is now actually in their mid 20s. In that same vein, shortly after James showed up, we split a 40 year old female caretaker—who was an introject of our best friend’s mother, someone who showed us love and care at the time. A 5 year old does not know what a 40 year old woman is actually like. She’s a 5 year old’s perception of a 40 year old woman with the friend’s mother as our blueprint. So a kind, loving, sweet woman who cares about children. 40 year old women are much more complex than that, but how were we supposed to know that at 5 years old? We didn’t.

In addition we have a mix of child alters who are “stuck” in a childlike state and other child alters who are incredibly capable of adult tasks. Many child alters are the “oldest” in the entire system and have lived the entire life masking as an older child/teen/young adult/adult. While some child alters are not capable of this due to trauma, it is NOT uncommon for child alters to be aware and able to be like an adult. They just happen to seem childlike at times or appear childlike internally.

I am glad you replied to this @foreverfragmented because I would have probably lost my marbles if I had seen this in the wild with nobody explaining how horrible and damaging this is. Not just because of grooming or bad people preying on systems using this rhetoric, but also because of the inability to heal and work through system experiences with these ideals.