Gatekeeper: A gatekeeper is an alter that controls switching or access to front, access to an internal world or certain areas within it, or access to certain alters or memories.
We have two gatekeepers. One is to prevent the little alters from coming out at a serious or important environment. The other is to keep the trauma from not fronting but harming, when they do front. These alters are ones that often act in harmful ways, but have protective intentions.
What is Gatekeeping? According to Urban Dictionary, gatekeeping is defined as, "when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity".
Protector alters try to manage rage and anger, and avoid feelings of hurt, fear or shame. They focus on perceived threats, and find dependence , emotional needs and close relationships (attachment) threatening.
The Gatekeeper Alter
The eighth type of alter is the gatekeeper; an alter that controls switching to the front and access to the person's inner world. Gatekeepers control access to specific memories or protected alters and can, in some cases, prevent unwanted switching.
Gatekeeper: A gatekeeper is an alter that controls switching or access to front, access to an internal world or certain areas within it, or access to certain alters or memories.
Gatekeeping trauma is creating a stigma that prevents people from getting the help they need. This narrative that you do not get to "call it trauma" if you have not experienced something overtly horrific is dehumanizing and ignorant.
The names of the alters often have a symbolic meaning. For example, Melody might be the name of a personality who expresses herself through music. Or the personality could be given the name of its function, such as “The Protector” or “The Perpetrator”.
A positive trigger is something non-trauma related and is pleasant enough to cause an alter to come forward and experience happy emotions, such as a special toy, cute puppies, or a favorite ice cream flavor. A positive trigger, in some instances, can be used to bring forth an alter.
Alters may provide a means of expressing anger or other feelings. Aggression towards the body may be sexually oriented, so one may ask whether aggression could make self-rape possible. If so, such expression of self-injuries may be observed in a person with multiple personality as when one alter may injure another.
A gatekeeper is any initial intermediary between a salesperson and a decision-maker within an organization. They might field calls for executives, be the first point of contact at a company's physical office, or fulfill any other responsibilities to screen who gets to connect with the decision-makers they work for.
Gatekeeping can take many forms, but generally refers to the act of limiting a person's access to something, be it a community, a label or even a diagnosis, because they don't live up to certain standards set by those already initiated.
Following Lewin, Shoemaker and Reese (1996) and Shoemaker and Vos (2009) identified five levels of analysis for the study of gatekeeping: individual, communication routines, organizational, social institutions, and social system.
The Gatekeeper is able to open psionic rifts to damage nearby soldiers or can fire directly at any unit with its Fire Beam attack. Finally, its Consume ability allows it to touch any nearby unit to sap its life and heal itself. If the target is slain by this attack, it may be reanimated as a psi zombie.
The gatekeeper's role is to discriminate and filter candidates. In many cases, gatekeepers are responsible for keeping out people considered undesirable or dangerous. For example, security guards at a building entrance are acting as gatekeepers, keeping out intruders and protecting the people inside.
Each alter holds different memories and roles within the system - depending on what the system needs to cope or survive. While some alters are fully aware that they are alters, others (such as the host) may have completely no idea.
When an alter is not fronting, we can still have an awareness of one another in “the inner world” which is basically where alters go when they aren't in control of the body. If you are the one fronting, you can concentrate on the inner world and “see” it in your mind's eye.
Most people with DID rarely show noticeable signs of the condition. Friends and family of people with DID may not even notice the switching—the sudden shifting in behavior and affect—that can occur in the condition.
We do not necessarily hear real voices in our head, but experience more like vivid thoughts. The manner in which we experience these thoughts depends on how severely we are dissociated from our "self." As a result, we with DID who hear voices are actually hearing dissociated thoughts.
While the host is aware of the person's body, the alters are not always aware that they share the same body as the host, which can lead to belief that suicide would have no effect on the host.
A person living with DID may have as few as two alters or as many as 100. The average number is about 10. Often alters are stable over time, continuing to play specific roles in the person's life for years.
For those that developed dissociative identity disorder as children in response to trauma, then yes, it is possible to continue to create alters and parts later on in life if the circumstances and the DID system necessitate it.
Gatekeeping in relationships is a serious red flag to be on the lookout for, as this can often be viewed as toxic, manipulative or even abusive behavior—especially if the gatekeeper is withholding information to maintain power over you.
Gatekeeping – "the process of controlling information as it moves through a gate. Activities include among others, selection, addition, withholding, display, channeling, shaping, manipulation, repetition, timing, localization, integration, disregard, and deletion of information."
This phrase became popular after the girlboss movement failed to fulfill its promises. Gaslighting is a form of emotional manipulation that makes people question their own emotions, while gatekeeping is an act of limiting other people's opinions by making them feel unqualified.