People, Not Alters

The medical (MPD/DID) model of plurality often uses the word 'alters' to refer to members of multiple systems. Many people find it insulting, including the members of our system. We find that it deprives us of the right to define ourselves as people, and feels a bit as though we have to be a lesser class of people simply because we happen to be plural. Whenever people want to define what sentient, intelligent entities can and cannot be a person, we start getting into murky philosophical territory. 

What does 'alter' actually mean, and what are its implications?

'Alter' is short for 'alternate personality'. To whom are we alternate? Why must we be reduced to being 'personalities'? There is no mythical main person here for whom we serve as 'additional personalities'; we are each people, with our own personalities. The use of the term 'alters' to refer to all members of multiple systems presupposes that there must be a 'main person', and that we are all adjuncts to that main person. We have always been plural. To use a term that favours the 'main person and new "personalities" model' is not only insulting to us; it is inaccurate for us, as well.

There is another way in which 'alter' is used--some people subscribe to a version of the medical model in which there is only a single person present, and the 'alters' are simply that individual's personalities, rather than sentient entities. This is even more galling, because there is certainly NOT a mythical singlet who has us for personalities. We are all there is. The singlet persona we adopt for the outside world is the personality, not us. We know that we are sentient, and will not have someone else tell us whether we can and cannot exist, especially when we know full well that we do think as separate people do. 
 

We, the people

We prefer to refer to ourselves as people. We may happen to share the same skin, and inhabit the same brain, but our very essences are different to one another, and that cannot be dismissed. It is not necessary, in our opinion, to have separate bodies in order to lay claim to personhood; rather, we can adopt the Cartesian definition of 'thinking entity'. Do we think separately from one another? Yes, we do. Do different things stir our hearts, and rouse our souls? Indeed they do. Do we love, do we hate, do we imagine, do we dream? Of course. We have our own individual views of the world, hold our own beliefs, have our own relationships with others, and think in ways that others do not. To reduce us to mere personalities, or wisps of people, is a gross misrepresentation of what we are, in the most fundamental sense. We do acknowledge that our situation is different from that of separate-bodied people, but even with those differences, that does not mean that we cannot have the honour--the respect--of being referred to as separate people.  

When we wish to clarify that we are in the same system, we will say 'our system-mate', or 'our headmates', or 'our colleagues', depending on the context, and who is speaking. There is no need to reduce us to 'alters' or 'personalities' because of our condition.  

Related articles
Dissociation and Assumptions, by Richard Ghia-Wilberforce
The Main Person Fallacy, by Richard and Darwin Ghia-Wilberforce