This might be long. But i need a place to document this stuff and keep track of it. If anyone relates or has insight, it is appreciated, though i understand if it's too much rambling personal stuff.
TL;DR - other parts took over while i was writing then i discovered they had been present and writing in my journals for most of my life. mind blown, reality shattered.
I have been experiencing increasing dissociation over the last year or two and couldn't figure it out. I started isolating really badly and didn't get why. I go to therapy regularly and have discussed it. I have a long history of trauma, so obviously that's a factor. But I kept feeling like there was this big Something that i "wasn't allowed" to look at. Every time i tried to think about it or figure it out, i felt something push me away internally. T said i should respect that it might be too much too soon.
On Wednesday i had a seizure in chemistry lab. The last time was several months ago. I had them numerous times in the past, was tested and found to not be epileptic. After Wednesday's seizure, i started wondering if it was connected to dissociation. I called my mom to ask if she had notes or records from all the neurology testing i had in high school - i explained that i had been dissociating heavily and was trying to figure out what is going on. she was weird and dismissive and kept trying to tell me to stop looking in the past and just let go and move on. which only made me angry and more determined to solve it myself. she generally thinks all my problems are because i don't "accept Jesus". i think she uses religion to block out her own mental health problems and mine as well.
Realizing i would get no help from her, i started going through my old journals (which span from age six to now, age thirty-one). I started putting page flags on every instance where i mentioned dissociation, memory loss, flashbacks, etc. the more i researched, the stranger i felt - spacey and detached, but also with some hints of *feelings*. i haven't been able to feel feelings of any kind for a long time, so this was especially unsettling, though i figured it must be a good thing.
i was exhausted Friday, spent all day in a bio lab, then went to work all night (i also work in a lab). got off work at seven am and came home, planning to just go to bed. i sat down to read some posts on this board and i started getting confused - i couldn't read a whole sentence straight, it felt like my brain was trying to shut itself off repeatedly. i knew i was tired, but it felt like something was internally powering me down when i tried to read or think. then i suddenly started hearing this internal voice telling me "DID is fake. these people are fake. they're making it all up. you make everything up. all of you just want attention." It escalated until it was yelling at me that ALL mental illness is made up, and from there it moved on to all illness of any kind - saying that "people get cancer because they want to be victims!" ..at that point i knew it didn't make sense. i work in a pathology lab, i see cancer every day. obviously it's real. i knew i had to shut that voice up so i closed the laptop and decided to put my thoughts down in my journal.
i started writing and mid-sentence, my hand froze. i couldn't move. i looked at the sentence i had written and, where it should have said "my", it said "our". i felt a sinking, spinning feeling and it's like a bunch of dividing walls inside me dissolved. they started writing. in different handwriting. answering questions and having a conversation, basically. every time i wrote, it felt like someone was using my body. then it would freeze and i felt like something climbed into my skin and shifted around, my vision would blur briefly and refocus, and then someone else would write. it was cycling rapidly through and i was scared. they wrote for me to go look at my old journals. i grabbed them and started flipping to the page flags i had left for myself - and holy $#%^. there were all the same sets of writing, having ######6 conversations with each other. in journals from fifteen to twenty years ago! i went cold. how had i missed that before? It's like i couldn't recognize it. in numerous journals from middle school and early high school, there are entries where i say things like "they're always fighting and i can't make them stop, i'll just go away" followed by the other sets of writing. it's insane.
i sat there, frozen with my journals all over the kitchen table. i could hear them in my head now, and realized it's what i've ALWAYS been hearing. i just tuned it out all the time. usually by listening to music, watching tv, also by drinking and doing drugs. but now i could recognize them. in my head it's still sort of a jumbled cacophony, but writing seems to slow me down enough that they can get out whatever it is they need to say. i asked them questions in my head and they answered in my journal. i wanted to know why i was being so isolated, they said because i was getting tired and couldn't keep hiding it. i asked why they kept me writing for years, they said because i was trying to "leave evidence" for myself, and because that's how they had shared memories of an event - if i wrote it down, they could all read it and incorporate it into their memory.
i was so exhausted and overwhelmed, i had to sleep. it was very hard to fall asleep. i thought "maybe i'm just delusional and overtired and i'll wake up and it will be normal". But when i woke up, i still heard them. and when i went in the bathroom, there was a note in dry-erase marker on the mirror that said "READ YOUR LAST JOURNAL ENTRY. IT IS REAL."
i am terrified, but also excited to be figuring something out. my problems with time, memory, behavior, thoughts.. they span my whole life and i have never been able to know why.
i was scared when i woke up, and i had a trusted friend come over. i explained and showed her everything, and she acknowledged that it seems to be a real thing. i just needed someone else to be able to see all the writing and hear the story and tell me whether it made sense or not.
i have therapy wednesday and i am nervous. part of me wonders if T already suspected.
i just slept twelve hours and still feel exhausted. i feel like my world has exploded into a thousand pieces. i keep telling myself, i'm still the same person. nothing has changed. just my awareness. it will be ok.
but i'm still freaked out. i keep telling myself it's not real, then i go look at all these dozens of notebooks and realize it must be. i can't look in the mirror because it doesn't make sense and it scares me. i feel like they are taking turns jumping into and out of my skin, my face, my brain.
i wish it was wednesday already.