mixed apparently normal and emotional parts

in some cases of dissociative identity disorder , some alters may be neither apparently normal nor emotional parts but a combination of both . this phenomenon is often associated with severe childhood trauma and can indicate that the trauma began at a very young age or that the trauma bled over into daily life in such a way as to prevent the normal differentiation between apparently normal and emotional parts . parts may be more like either apparently normal parts or emotional parts , and some parts may still fit into the neat dichotomy entirely , but such systems might also have more blended parts . for example , there might be traumatic identity states who are mature , are capable of remaining rational and grounded , and have full access to their memories of the traumas that they experienced or have neutral identity states who struggle with intense emotions , both negative and positive PTSD symptoms , and have some degree of memory for what the traumatic identity states experienced ( even if this knowledge of their history is inconsistent or mostly intellectual instead of emotional ) . this could even be thought of as a type of quaternary structural dissociation in which individual parts have their own internal ANP and EP states . systems with these less defined boundaries are thought to struggle more than more traditional DID systems because their ANP are less able to separate themselves from the trauma and so present as normal .