I'm new to this... I don't know whats wrong with me

**possible triggers**


Hi to anyone who reads this

I'm currently in therapy... my psychologist isn't in to labels but she feels I have dissociative behaviors and I agree with her.
I'm 22 and female. I have been up and down like a yo-yo for the last 6 years or so. I have had adult sexual abuse a repressed memories that have only just surfaced of child sexual abuse.
I do not know my alters... if I have any.
I havent ever read anything on people with DID and how they found out they had alters or how they get to know them? I think I am too afraid to delve intonmy mind. My (very unhealthy) coping mechanism has always been to let certain cut off parts of me takencare of certain emotions and when I feel a different emotion the part of me that deals with that takes over.

I have done an exercise with my psychologist where I have sat on different chairs and taken on different emotions or different sides of me which overwhelms me and I never let go enoughtbtonlet it all out something or some part if me keeps it all hidden.

I had a pretty posottive upbeat christmas and new year. But had a weird and rough few days consisting of flashbacks and strange feelings. I now feel like I'm different than who I was over christmas... like that me was just on auto pilot. She was so strong and happy and so together. I dont even know how to be like that now? I feel I was watching someone else in my body pulling me through.
I have found a disturbing memo on my phone that I can't remember writing. It terrifies me it says:

" I was in the house. Upstairs in the hall hiding.
I have always been around. Youbused to watch me when you were younger.
Youd watch me walk to school. I went to 6th form. I took over for a long time.
I argued with people.
I can be horrible.

She let people walk all over her.
The people that didn't matter. And she hurt people that did.

I LET YOU run away from everything!"

As much as this scared me it sent me in to whirl of flashacks. Of seeing myself from a burds eye view. Of days goung by and not remembering. Feeling like I 'come round' and I'm just satbin a lesson at school not knowing how I got there what lesson it is.

I have such a hard time being emotional around people. I need this to stop.
Can anyone draw any comparisions to their own experiences to mine? Please any advice I will take.
I am seeing my therapist tomorrow and I really want to open up to her. But everytime I get close to being upset something takes over and toughens me up and speaks for me.

Alice

No one here can diagnose you, but we can try to help kinda get you started in the right direction. If you want a for-sure diagnosis, seek out a professional, one familiar with dissociative disorders, and get a diagnosis.

Our advice would be to check out these threads, see if you identify with any symptoms, experiences, feelings, thoughts, etc., and if you do, then you might want to check out the possibility of DID for yourself further.

-- This thread contains DID resource websites along with organized threads from this site that deal with discovery experiences, communication with alters, symptoms, dissociative experiences, common questions, and much more:
- DID/DDNOS Resources: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic100829.html


-- This thread focuses on the "causes" of DID, development of DID, switching/co-consciousness/co-hosting, issues with doubt/denial, and has a couple good threads on communicating/accepting/understanding/working with alters:
- For all who question how they have DID/think their's is odd: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic104081.html


Other than that, hello and welcome! We hope you find this place helpful to you.


~A mixture of us(?)

Thank you for your reply I will look at these threads.
Myself and my therapist are looking in to the direction of DID butni have a hard time letting any other part of me out fully in our sessions. I cancel sessions if I know im in a vulnerable state.

I would just appreciate any similar experiences or any help on how I can get in touch with the other sides of me

Thank you

That's why we gave you those threads. They're filled with posts made by users of this forum of similar experiences, how to get in contact, how to communicate, how to work with alters, different discovery experiences, etc. They're filled with all you're looking for.

We have similar experiences. We're not in a place where we can share them right now. As it is, we're barely here (we think there's a new little that's mostly "out" right now), but we wanted to still try and help you, so we gave you the threads because they have all you're looking for if you look through them. The threads are organized by category, they have the titles of the threads, and they have explanations for what the threads are about if it's not obvious in the title.

Either way you're going to be reading. Whether it's replies here or things that are already posted on this forum. We figured it'd be more helpful to give you a whole lists of posts that are organized by category in these threads so that you don't have to wait for people to reply here, you can just start immediately reading things that seem to be helpful to you or that interest you or that might apply to you or that you identify with.

We will say now that we've been able to read your post (our eyesight was too blurry before) that you should definitely look further into the possibility of DID. It sounds like you could definitely be on the right track with dissociative disorders, and it definitely could be DID.


~A mixture of us(?)

Dissociative disorders are so confusing. It is so hard to try and explain what is going on for you. I think it is important to note that DID comes in different degrees. I have been formally diagnosed but I can experience things like you've said there: feeling like you have been taken over by a new 'personality'. I think thats why ordinarily diagnosis takes such a long time. It is such an intricate disorder with loads of facets to it. I'd advise hanging around here and reading for a bit. I did for a long time after being diagnosed and it helped a lot to hear what other people had to say and how much I could relate to them. Any specific questions, feel free to ask me.

-~B

I am looking through them now. Thank you for showing me the kindness and to care enough to send me those links.

I hope to talk to you soon and wish you all all the best

Alice x

We hope to be able to reply more when we're more able to. You're certainly welcome for the links, we like to try and help any way we can, if at all possible.

Bourbon is right. Keep in mind that DID is a personal disorder, so not everyone's going to experience the exact same thing, not everyone's going to have the exact same symptoms, everyone's going to be slightly different. So don't worry if you don't seem to "fit" things within DID perfectly- this is normal.

And as Bourbon said, feel free to ask any questions, post anywhere (like on any of the threads you read through), and post anything you're comfortable with. This is a safe, supportive, and understanding place, and we all try to help each other out with our confusions and questions and experiences.


~A mixture of us(?)

Hi B
thank you for your reply. I will continue to read up as much as I can. I have been consumed with research on DID and borderline personality disorder for the last few months.my therapist really wants me to embrace my dissociative sides and open them up to me. I have a protective side of me that takes over when people try to poke around and get me to reveal parts of me. I'm starting to realise this is my protector.
And when the protector part of me isn't here and can't protect me I hide.

I'm really hoping I still feel as fragile as I do tomorrow and the protective side of me stops bullying the vulnerable sides away.

B, do you have different sides of you? When did you become aware of them?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read mypost and reply

Alice x

Welcome here

It sounds like you could have come to the right place. I can definitely relate to what you are saying and I have found myself plenty of times while in school just "coming to" and having no idea how I got there and what class I was having. Not what day it was either, for that matter.

I used to lose time but now it doesn't happen as much and I've been able to talk to my alters by writing to them, asking them questions, having other people meet them and ask them questions from me (and from themselves). I've given them drawing supplies so they could draw for me if they weren't able or comfortable with talking. I've tried asking inside (asking a question "loudly" inside my head to see if I would get a response) but this took a long time for me to work.

This is a great place to get support.
Best of luck figuring this all out

I'm 22 and female. I have been up and down like a yo-yo for the last 6 years or so. I have had adult sexual abuse a repressed memories that have only just surfaced of child sexual abuse.

I'm 27, and being up and down like a yo-yo sounds about right. The older I get the worse it seems to get. I just became aware of my DID about 4 months ago. I had no idea there was any sexual abuse in my past up until around then. I only knew of the physical and emotional abuse, and neglect...but it didn't occur to me right before I found out about DID that I really didn't have any memories of it, I just knew it happened.

I do not know my alters... if I have any.
I havent ever read anything on people with DID and how they found out they had alters or how they get to know them?

Long story short (kinda lol)...I had truama 5 months ago. 3 weeks later had some sexual abuse memories come back. T said it was dissociative amnesia. Looked it up on google but DID kept appearing on my screen. Finally decided to stop fighting it and just read it. Had all the symptoms, except multiple personalities, or so I thought. When I read how people describe what it's like (feeling like a passenger in your own body, not being able to control what you say or do), I thought I might be on to something and found this forum so I could read true stories from real people.

The more I read the more I could relate. That's when I realized I had alters. I always knew they were there, but I didn't at the same time. I just didn't know what they were. I had all of these DID symptoms throughout my life, but never thought to consider they all might be related.

Sometime right before learning about DID, I had become aware that during one of my conversations with myself I was referring to myself as "you", and that the voice referring myself to "you" also had a different tone. Like every other DID experience I've ever had, I acknowledged it, thought it was odd, had no explanation, so I forgot about it. Thinking back on past experiences, especially in the last 6 months before I learned about DID and the trauma happening is what really convinced me though. Just two weeks before the truama I went to the doc for meds bc the mind chatter (loud voices) kept me up most of the night. I've had this problem on an off for a very long time.

As of right now, I really don't know my alters either. I've met some of them, I've had short, brief communication a few times, but I think they're p*ssed at me, so I think that's why they're not talking to me...and I don't blame them. I probably wouldn't talk to me either.

I now feel like I'm different than who I was over christmas... like that me was just on auto pilot. She was so strong and happy and so together. I dont even know how to be like that now? I feel I was watching someone else in my body pulling me through.

A friend told me a few months ago after the trauma happened, that she always envied me because no matter what happened to me I was always so well put together, like nothing could ever phase me. Someone stronger than me always took over so I appear well put together and uneffected by my stresses. Depending on what 'mood' I'm in will depend on how I view this. A part of me feels confident that's just how I always am...that's how they are. As for me, I'm definitely not like that, and I don't understand how I could be. I'm over emotional....the strong part isn't unemotional per say, but she doesn't let emotions run her.

So, I know what you mean. Overall, I'm a different person now than before the trauma 5 months ago, and a different person between then and april, and a different person between then and December. And a different person between there depending on the situation. That's just me...always a different person. I always knew that, just didn't know why until now.

Feeling like I 'come round' and I'm just satbin a lesson at school not knowing how I got there what lesson it is.

I had this a lot in school. I would 'wake up' to realize I didn't remember going to the previous period at all, or that we were several pages farther into the textbook than I thought we were....stuff like that.

I have such a hard time being emotional around people. I need this to stop.
Can anyone draw any comparisions to their own experiences to mine? Please any advice I will take.
I am seeing my therapist tomorrow and I really want to open up to her. But everytime I get close to being upset something takes over and toughens me up and speaks for me.

I've always been like that too. The last few months I've been nothing but emotional and I have no control over it, and very little if any memory of it.

I hope this helps. Sorry I wrote so much, I always do! We just have so much to say!