Confused

Hi all, new here. I'm posting in DID not because I have been diagnosed with it or necessarily think I have it, but because from lurking here, it seems as though this is the busiest of the dissociation-related subforums.

I'm posting because I'm going through a pretty hard time in my life right now, and part of me wonders (or maybe, is worried - there is a difference) if it could be DID or something similar.

I've been anxious basically my whole life about a number of different things and I think that I have highly dissociative tendencies. I can remember feeling 'out of it' or 'spacey' a lot, as well as having issues with the world feeling 'unreal' (I recognize these as two different sensations, but I've felt them as related). I also feel as though I don't have too stable of an identity - I feel like my who I have been has been highly variable based on who I was around at the time - often having to do with intimate relationships, which have, in some way, probably 'gotten me through' any issues I've had.

I referred above to 'my whole life,' but another thing that worries me is how little of my life I remember. I have a general idea of my life to date (I'm 22), but there are a lot of specifics I can't recall about things that I feel I 'should' remember. I think I was pretty unhappy as a child (not in any stereotypically traumatic way, just socially distant and then involved with a group of friends who didn't treat me all that well, to be very general), but as I say, I think there's a lot that I just don't remember.

I don't, however, have any 'alters' or anything like that. Sometimes I feel confused about who I've been or amazed at how competent I've been (particularly when I'm feeling like this), but I have no indication that I have just totally been 'missing' or anything like that. When I recall a random memory, I can usually place if or have some idea of when in my life it must have come from. I've never gone by a different name or anything, and even though my personality may fluctuate wildly, I've just sort of always thought of myself as a pretty variable person.

I don't know what all of this means. I've been in psychoanalytic psychotherapy on and off, some of which I think was decently helpful, some of which I don't really remember, and some of which I have a feeling was probably a waste of time. I'm in a professional program right now and I can't really afford to be feeling like this if I'm going to continue with the program - I worry and ruminate endlessly about what's wrong with me, I've sort of withdrawn from all of my friends here and I feel like its threatening my long-term relationship (with a woman who I'm very serious with and with whom I would like nothing more than to start a happy stable life). Additionally, besides her and my (divorced) parents, both of whom are psychoanalysts, I don't have much of a support network. Despite how social and outgoing I can be a lot of the time, most of my friendships and past relationships have really degraded.

Thanks for the help and understanding, I really do appreciate it.

Member accidentally posted two similar threads and would like for discussion to be focussed on the other one which can be found here: post1118298.html#p1118298