Persecutor Alters are usually misunderstood. They are perceived as being evil, mean, aggressive, hostile and have nothing better to do than harm the body. They are often hated by everyone. I’ve even heard of Systems locking them up in a “jail” in the Inner World and denying them any good thing at all. Persecutors probably have the hardest time of all the Alters in finding their place within a System that doesn’t want them. I know. I’ve been there! Our System has had some very difficult to manage Persecutors and we have acted badly towards them in our ignorance and lack of understanding of their role.’
I’ve said it once before: There are no evil Alters. There are no redundant Alters. Every Alter has a role to play in keeping the System safe. Even Persecutors. In fact, the Persecutor role is vitally important in a healthy System. That might shock you to read that, and you may be shaking your head and vehemently disagreeing with me. The next part of this blog is going to be written by a former Persecutor in our System. She’s now our strongest Protector, but still has Persecutor traits.
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Yo. It’s Sophia. Whassup peeps? Yeah so I was a Persecutor. I been around since the body was in teens. I hosted through most of those years much to the frustration of family, heh! I’m the type of person who gets sh*t done. I’m not interested in being anyone’s friend. I tell it like it is, and if you don’t like it, too bad. That’s just me and I tell people to deal with it.
What’s it like being a Persecutor? It sucks. Literally sucks. I didn’t ask to be one. I didn’t choose to be one. I was created this way. I hated being misunderstood, but at the same time I didn’t like anyone enough to be bothered explaining myself or why I did sh*t. My job was to protect the System in ways that none of the other Alters would dare do. If you think about it, there is a logic behind DID and behind how Persecutors act. I was the one who’d get up in someone’s grill if they were having a go at us. Yeah I was also the one to harm the body when things got hard. I didn’t do this one but an example would be if someone told us we were fat; a Persecutor would then limit food intake to try to get skinny so the name-calling would stop. So there’s logic behind it. Maybe YOU don’t see the logic, but us Persecutors do.
We’d provide an outlet for all that pent up frustration and anger and hurt. Yeah, so usually it was against the body cuz we absolutely believed it was our fault that we was abused. Maybe that don’t make sense to you and that’s fine. It makes sense to us. The abuse broke the confidence of the Core Personality, and part of my role was to hold onto a shred of that confidence so that when it was needed, it was there. And yeah, I’m angry most of the time cuz of all the sh*t that’s been done to us by other people. It’s wrong. Why do people gotta be so horrid to one another? It’s all about control innit. The abusers have all the control and they get off on it and they don’t give a damn who they hurt. So if I hurt us more, then their abusive tactics won’t hurt as much. Get it?
But here’s the thing; Persecutors can learn to be better Protectors if they can learn better coping methods. Methods that don’t harm the System or the body. Ain’t gonna lie… it takes time. I’ve put us in hospital many times. Most of the scars on the body are my fault. It’s hard to change, but if I can do it, so can any Persecutor. They just gotta be willing and stop bullsh*tting themselves. They need to grow up, plain and simple. If a person can change, then so can an Alter. I still got Persecutor traits, but I am a much better Protector now, and the System needs me.
And that’s me done. Laters.
Sophia
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Check out Ed's educational video here about Persecutors.