I have what I like to call “associative personality order”; within my head, there were once 9 “people” who lived, thought, and on occasion, acted without my conscious oversight.
Over roughly 18 years, I laboriously came to detentes, then collaboration, and eventually, mutually accepted unification. But the really interesting part was that until all the assimilation was complete, I could CHOOSE to “work with” or “hand the reins to” one of the “other me’s” living in my head.
I think only three people actually knew what I was struggling with, and only one of those three actually had direct conversations with “the girls”.