Acceptance & Awareness *TRIGGERS*

Trigger for DID systems/awareness etc

I heard the word DID back in Sept of 2012 - roughly 8 months ago. I have lived my whole life oblivious to DID, alters, memory gaps & time loss. When I heard the word (DID) I thought yes I probably have a lighter version of that because at that time my host was not aware of alter switches and blatant memory loss. It's all coming together now. My whole life makes sense. Why my adolescent alter wants a motorcycle; why my little has a security blanket. Why I applied to medical school and then did a 180 spin and never pursued that at all?! Why I married the guy I married who probably also has DID.

Trigger for death/suicide

It all came together when my dad committed suicide. This traumatized my younger alters who received the news. It activated my DID-system. It became a midlife-DID-crisis for many months.
I walked around in a daze, hardly knew who I was and couldn't remember what I did the day before.

Fast forward a few months. I see many signs of DID and not the lighter version.

I switch everyday between hosts and sometimes emotional parts.
I have some detectable time loss between alters.
I feel co-consciousness, that heavy full feeling of pressure on my brain that extra beings are here in my head, literally feels like they are sitting on my head watching as I type.
I have experienced being possessed by an alter as my T talked through to him in session.
I have felt my 10 year old alter having feelings, desires and opinions separate from my own.
My journals have different handwriting for different alters.
I have repeatedly experienced the activation of my littles both in this forum and in RL by other people who have DID.
It's real. It's real even if I think my memories of SA aren't that significant.


Trigger- cause of my DID

My particular case of DID seems to be caused by a cocktail of physical trauma from a car accident at 2-3 ( I went through the windshield) + my parent's divorce (3 times) + early sexualization and incest.

Sometimes I can't comprehend WHY these things caused DID in me. Maybe I was an overly sensitive child who could not handle A + B + C + D. Maybe A or C wasn't enough for DID but A + B + C + D did it?

I yield. I accept. I have DID.

You are so strong I'm happy you're reaching acceptance.
Made me smile to see this
You are doing great healing.

Thinking of you my friend.

Journalgirl wrote:I yield. I accept. I have DID.

Yup!

Sorry we can't say more, we relate a bit too much, can feel an argument brewing.... some in here def not quite there yet.....

Really glad you are all on the same page.

blu

I was interested to see the A+B+C+D part of that.... I myself don't know exactly what or when my D.I.D. stems from.... at this point the earliest trama (sexual) I am at all awear of did not occur untill the age of 15.... I have heard that most times it is before the age of 9 that the trama occurs causing a person to split so I don't know if I am a rare case or something that developed it later, or if there are things that happened earlier in my life that heped to cause it.... I can only speculate right now but its something i'd like to know for certain....

Blu-Web wrote:

Journalgirl wrote:I yield. I accept. I have DID.

Yup!

Sorry we can't say more, we relate a bit too much, can feel an argument brewing.... some in here def not quite there yet.....

Really glad you are all on the same page.

blu

Can relate to that argument brewing Blu - I wasn't even sure if the post would be deleted or not!

You are so strong I'm happy you're reaching acceptance.
Made me smile to see this
You are doing great healing.

Thinking of you my friend.

Thank you LLT! We are working hard but I dont feel very strong - I think we are moving in the right direction -

Blu-LLT thanks so much for your support. It means a lot!!

crazy3: Other kinds of trauma can lead to DID - perhaps you haven't discovered all of it yet? I do see that you have younger alters in your signature. I thought that younger alters meant trauma at that age - but i could be wrong. I have a 3 yo alter perhaps my very first "split" -she does not talk but I speculate that she holds the car wreck trauma. She is glued to my 10 yo alter. In time maybe the 10 year old can tell me if she knows anything, otherwise I really don't know anything yet. Good luck in your journey or sorting out your own DID.

xxoo

Journalgirl wrote:Can relate to that argument brewing Blu - I wasn't even sure if the post would be deleted or not!

lol! the joy of DID!!! Tis good you relate.

Journalgirl wrote:Blu-LLT thanks so much for your support. It means a lot!!

X

Journalgirl wrote:Other kinds of trauma can lead to DID - perhaps you haven't discovered all of it yet? I do see that you have younger alters in your signature. I thought that younger alters meant trauma at that age - but i could be wrong.

Crazy3 we also thought this, and did look at your sig and see the younger alters.....when I started therapy, i wasn't aware of my DID or any trauma before the age of 13. It's quite amazing what we are able to hide from ourselves.

I def think DID has to be caused by trauma at a young age, before the personality has as chance to form i.e. before 5. This is just what i/we believe, there are other opinions out there.

My understanding is the developing childs mind needs to attach to a care-giver, this is a basic survival instinct/need, but either due to neglect or abuse of some kind, the child cannot form this attachment without seriously dissociating from some experiences.

I have also heard it's not so much that a split occurs, as a failure to integrate at the start. Because of the trauma the child cannot keep the care-giver attachment and integrate the personality fragments, so core personality doesn't form correctly. The developing parts of the childs identity fail to integrate to form a core personality.

Supposedly, this is why you only get DID if the trauma occurs when very young but not if something equally traumatic occurs later in life. If the trauma occurs after the core personality has formed, it cannot be split, so people end up with PTSD, Complex PTSD, but not the identity issues specific to DID. Sorry if that was a bit of information over-load/science lesson...

please bear in mind, this is only our opinion, based on what we have heard/read.

blu

I can relate.

Last year I was diagnosed with DID, but I thought, whatever. I wasn t aware of the fact that Nina - who s been part of my life since age 18 or 19 ish, was actually an alter.

It took me a year - til December 2012, when they all introduced themselves.

I find it hard to find decent help. My alters are mostly ignored or not spoken off by the T.

I m glad you found acceptance. That is such a big step.

Love

Nina11

Thought I would post an update of my progress or lack thereof.

TRIGGERS about my DID system, hopeless part etc...

Still aware of emotional parts and embracing them. Accepting them all.

Noticing a cycle of events that keeps repeating itself. Not able to stop the cycle but at least I notice it now.

Current host becomes overwhelmed with life, with parenting, with marriage, with life events some of which are triggering, some of are ordinary life (no trauma) ...

Protector teen part comes out to rescue the situation. Oftentimes making the matters worse.

Hopeless part cycles in who wants to give up on everything.

It's like layers. Normal on the outside. Protector under, protecting against intense emotions and new knowledge and hopeless swimming underneath all that.

This cycle just happened again in the past two days. It's exhausting. I have thought these parts were fully integrated only to find out they aren't when I become weary of life and tired...I will function almost normal until I get stressed. Sometimes little stresses sometimes big.

So positives. I'm aware more now than ever before.
Cons. I'm aware now more than ever.
Is it better to be aware? I think so but at what cost?
I'm stable. I'm not stable. I'm stable.

Pretty normal again this morning but with protector nearby and hopeless seeping through our normal.
I absolutely hate being aware.It's so chaotic.

Wow, this is such an important new awareness. It sounds very hard, too. Thank you for sharing this progress. It is helpful to me. Also, I don't think I had read this thread before and now I'm excited to go back and read it (this evening).

Thinking of you. I hope awareness brings a way out of the cycle with time.

Another update here...

Two sessions ago i became aware that i do not have the lighter version of did if there is such a thing-
It's amazing what the mind can do to push away the truth.

So I'm still struggling to accept this new reality. It's like i made some progress and then went back to believing nothing that bad happened to me.
So bad things happened but because im not getting full memory of certain events i would conclude things that probably arent true-
It's so hard to grasp that lots and lots of things ive told myself werent true- ?
It may help if i could get more memories but im afraid to know. Knowing just feels scary.

My day to day functioning is inconsistent-
I'd like to think awareness is a good thing but it feels terrible to be aware-

Some fusions have happened but if stressed we're all here again?
Progress is slow right now