“What happens when a new being among your system is discovered / reveals themselves?” -Mily
This has happened a few times to us so far, and there is at least one thing that is in common between each time. We have only really discovered new members after heavy unlocks. This is when a previously locked away memory surfaces. Typically when an unlock happens, all the associated emotions suddenly pour out with it. Both my system and my partner system get these, and the first thing to do after an unlock is to try to get the affected system grounded and in control again. We’ve all gotten decent at handling them, and we can usually move past them after a short time. Other times, there’s a feeling of numbness inside that moves around, almost like a shadow. The best way I can describe it is imagine the feeling of numbing cream on your skin, and that’s the sort of “This doesn’t feel like me” feeling that comes with meeting or even just feeling someone new internally for the first time.
We try to give that unknown feeling space until it either subsides and quiets down, or it forms somehow. What’s interesting is, sometimes once we meet the person who comes forward, it’s like the proof had been there the entire time that they existed. For instance, odd choices that no one in the system could explain at the time or even afterwards, the newly introduced member ended up explaining with very simple reasons. The example that comes to mind is our reason for being terrified of the dentist. No one had any memory of a traumatic experience there, and it’s not like the dentist is inherently more painful than any other doctor. Regardless, our entire system has a deep seated terror of dentist visits. The cause of the unlock this time was just as innocuous as usual (unlocks are usually triggered by the most usual, mundane things). This time it was the taste of cherry, but the same flavor used in children’s flouride treatment at dentists in the 80’s and 90’s. The unlock didn’t happen to have anything clear associated with it, and it got shut down in a normal timeframe.
Not long after this unlock, we kept getting that internal “I don’t know this, this is alien to me” feeling. Starlight had made herself known within about a week after. It turns out that Starlight had the experience of having a tooth extracted while awake when we were around 5 years old. Too young for dentists to believe that we could still feel the pain (redundant nerves, apparently), and the dentists did not have the foresight to cover a young child’s eyes. The terror of the traumatic dentist experience still stayed with us despite our brain dissociating the memory from most of us. So I feel this went completely off topic, but at the same time sometimes this is exactly what happens when a system member is discovered or reveals themself. Really, every instance a new system member is found is its own experience, so it’s hard to give a “This is what you can expect” style of answer. And as always, every system is different, and every system member within a system is different. Plurality is weird.
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