Double-checking...

Hey, my therapist recently diagnosed me with a dissociative disorder (I don't know which type yet), and I brought up a possible symptom the other day just to rule out a OSDD/DID thing. Fortunately they didn't think it was concerning, but because of the nature of the experience it's been hard to explain, and I wanted to check if anyone here can relate to it, essentially as a way to rule out a more complex dissociative cognitive organization.

Briefly, in times of great stress, and occasionally in daily life, I've been experiencing a 'self perspective change', which basically feels like the self-equivalent of a Rubin's vase optical illusion. I can feel my old self-perspective slipping away and changing to something new, like shifting your gaze from seeing a lamp to seeing two faces looking at each other (the vase illusion). Another way to conceptualize this would be as if you've fallen out of a trance that you've been in, but a really good one that feels like yourself, and now you're a different you. This experience is just wrenching, and is sometimes preceded by the presence of different imagined 'personalities' that are communicating, and which/whom I'm extremely averse to, though this second part has only occurred when I've been trying to fall asleep, and I'm guessing I've been hovering around stage 1 when it has occurred.

All of this could easily just be me-specific depersonalization stuff, but I'm double-checking anyway.

Thanks for reading through all of this, and please let me know if anything rings true.

It doesn't sound like you know enough yet to rule out an OSDD/DID "thing." I went to my T being SURE that I couldn't possibly have DID, but just had some kind of lower level dissociative disorder. It turns out that I have a pretty elaborated system of parts, but just very minimal amnesia, if any. I didn't have any of the classic symptoms and had a very clear memory of my whole childhood. But, there ya go. I was wrong.

Hearing parts communicating while you're trying to fall asleep is a common way to start being aware of them--when you're relaxed and your defenses are down is when they can get through more easily. And it's common to feel "extremely averse" to them, since the whole point is that they are kept out of your awareness. Have you told your T about this symptom also? Are they usually the same personalities each time and do you know anything about them yet?

Also, a "wrenching" experience of becoming a "different you" sounds like you switch to a different part sometimes.

When you're ready, you may want to read on the DID forum to see what you relate to.

Does your T have experience with OSDD/DID? Your need to try to rule it out is kind of a clue that there may be more going on than your aware of at this point. There is VERY much a "nothing to look at here, just move along" feeling that can crop up as a way to try to keep things out of awareness.

Sorry if this isn't what you were hoping to hear.

Thanks for replying, and yes I've told my therapist everything already. They have experience treating dissociative disorders in general, and they currently have one patient/client with DID. I never considered the possibility of having OSDD/DID myself until I began reading a book on the treatment of dissociative disorders a week ago (because of my recent diagnosis, and which turned out to focus on OSDD/DID), and there were enough parallels to frankly scare me; though I also don't want to lean too far into auto-confirming a diagnosis for myself, especially because the prior probability for my having one of these conditions is so low. I've hedged so much in order to maintain an attitude of almost-disbelief until proven otherwise, rather than beginning with a belief and then proving it, perhaps inaccurately.

And I'm not sure if they are the same personalities each time, but I have a feeling that they are, and yes I have fairly clear impressions of both external characteristics, such as age, gender, and race, as well as personality characteristics - and more than that, really the experience of their entire mind becoming/overlapping my own. I feel like this could also be attributed to stage 1 sleep in combination with my exceptionally powerful imagination; just to put that out there as an alternative. And I should probably state that I'm not seeking a diagnosis here, but rather I'm checking to see if my descriptions of my experiences are very similar to other's. Or perhaps not, and it's okay either way.

Thank you again for responding, and thanks also to everyone for reading this.

Mazama wrote:the prior probability for my having one of these conditions is so low. I've hedged so much in order to maintain an attitude of almost-disbelief until proven otherwise, rather than beginning with a belief and then proving it, perhaps inaccurately...

...I feel like this could also be attributed to stage 1 sleep in combination with my exceptionally powerful imagination; just to put that out there as an alternative.

I don't know what you mean about the prior probability for you having OSDD/DID is "so low." It's more common than schizophrenia and at least as common as bipolar disorder, and you don't develop it just from thinking you might have it. As I said, I was absolutely convinced that I didn't have it, and I had had a lot of education about dissociative disorders in the past. It just that most of what has been taught about them in formal settings is wrong. I thought that someone who didn't lose time, or change in an obvious way, or find clothes in their closet they didn't buy, or had people calling them by other names, or most of all, didn't have the kind of prolonged severe abuse that I thought was required, couldn't possibly have DID (and I didn't really even know about OSDD).

But most DDs are covert. I look very successful on the outside, and just "moody" sometimes.

If you search on the DID forum for "denial" or "doubt" or "wondering" or other words that might pull up the many posts that sound similar to yours, you might see a lot that you can relate to in people who are just starting to discover that they have OSDD/DID.

Denial is a form of dissociation, and if it's a person's go-to method of coping, then it comes up A LOT in folks with major dissociative disorders--not only at the beginning, like it might in someone else with a diagnosis of, for example, a physical illness. It can come up repeatedly in people who are officially diagnosed and in therapy for it for years.

I'm not diagnosing you, of course, but everything you mention is another tick in the positive column, not anything that rules it out. Having parts is way more common than people think--certainly than I ever thought.

Hey, it seems that something I’ve written has possibly caused you to feel defensive, and that’s the last thing I would want as a result of my posts. I’ve never posted on a forum (any forum, ever), and I really don’t want my question to get lost in interpersonal debate, especially for this first time around. I think a few things were maybe missed, and that’s that I’ve already been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, I’ve spoken with my therapist about these symptoms, and more, and they don’t think I have OSDD/DID, and I’ve read (by now) a book on the treatment of these disorders. Without going into detail, I felt comfortable posting my question on this forum specifically because I experience a good amount of overlap with OSDD/DID symptomology, and because there’s ambiguity surrounding the concerns I expressed, which could perhaps be better described as depersonalization and a hypnogogic state, respectively. This would really depend on whether forum participants strongly resonate with my exact descriptions or not, especially because language can so often fail us as we try to explain our own internal experiences, and it could be that my therapist wasn’t quite able to understand what I was saying when I spoke with them. I want to also thank you for taking the time to write, it shows a great deal of concern and thought.

Oh, no—I wasn’t feeling defensive at all—sorry if I came across that way. I agree that it’s hard to accurately convey some of these symptoms, and everyone’s experiences are different anyway.

I’m glad you have a good therapist, and I wish you the best on your healing journey.