Genuine question...

I am currently being spoken to by a psychiatrist and he is try to work what is up with me. I have know for a long time my problems are dissociative issues.

I was just wandering if anyone else experienced a 'mild' for of DID where you don't have different alters that have different names and ages, but there are time where you are different and you cant explain it. like you don't like people touching or cuddling you or crude jokes and other times you do. Like you personality completely changes between not understanding the thought of how to cook a large meal for your family and then another day all you do is bake? I am always fully aware of who I am. I have never to my knowledge forgotten my name or date of birth, but I am very aware of these personality changes, I am very contradictory I also get told I am lieing sometimes by friends because I agreed with something completely opposite one day to the next.

I also suffer with severe depersonalization and at times derealisation and recently had an extended episode while I was on holiday which was a horrible experience.
I experience times of numbness, I struggle with showing my feelings and if I d get upset I cant truly cry it's like my mind and body separate so I don't deal with the pain.

I have a history of self harm via black outs and a history of child abuse.

I know this all sounds like a cold account of my experiences but I tend to detach.
Please can someone shed someone shed some light on this if they have had any similar experiences?
x

Not everyones alters have names or ages. I have loads with names and ages yet most of the time I just feel different. As you said, one day really into cooking healthy meals, and the next baking or really into sewing instead.

Not forgetting this is also not abnormal as you can be co-conscious where, it is as though when you are in a car you are in the passenger seat, so you can still see what is going on and have input as to what happens.

My T put it nicely:

[Alter states are] 'a perfectly normal response to intolerable suffering'. He specializes in trauma, so is no stranger to dissociation.

I think DID is on a spectrum, with simple PTSD on one end (switching between re-experiencing and numbing/avoiding) and C-PTSD/DESNOS/DDNOS (or whatever it's called now) in the middle (i.e. more than one EP) and full blown DID on the other (more than one ANP). We are in the middle (i.e. always co-conscious/only some of the alters have amnesia, but I don't, etc. We have 2-3 ANPs, depending on whether you consider me [host/original] an ANP or not).

This article explains the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary structural dissociation

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDEQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F7487451_Dissociation_An_insufficiently_recognized_major_feature_of_complex_posttraumatic_stress_disorder%2Ffile%2F3deec51dffa3a89fc5.pdf&ei=92k0UuHEDoXAigKo_oCACw&usg=AFQjCNGiIoUSSJ10pDZxBByeHYceu1KGNQ&sig2=AQQ4P0hP9ShV26X9V41KGg&bvm=bv.52164340,d.cGE