Observations

This topic is for little things I notice in me (us), like a collection of symptoms in everyday life, I would otherwise probably forget. The kind of things I didn't pay any attention before, but am practicing now to realize. I want to write them down, so I wouldn't forget. I'm in a way using this as my own thread, but comments are warmly welcomed. (And I truly hope I can get finances sorted out to get the therapy, and I would have someone to tell these things, because that is why I am doing this, to get diagnosis and help.)

So, today is Wednesday 22.08.2018. I was coming from work and waiting for train in the train station. I sat down on stairs, took a water bottle from my backpack and drank it. I was not moving like me, I felt there was a boy moving in the body, with more masculine way of moving than mine. I didn't lose control at all, but I could feel like it was more natural for me to let my body move the way it did.

I lost focus for a while, don't remember how it was when I went in to the train when it arrived, but in the train I felt like there was someone else's "thoughts" also in my mind. Just that I didn't hear any thoughts, but there was a silence. I tried to concentrate on the silence and not disturb it, if something was about to come thru, but my own thoughts about if this is something, what is this, does he think something, what and why.. they were interrupting me from hearing him. And I think he was quiet in his mind, not trying to talk to me, but basically just minding his own business, looking out of the window. And I couldn't make my mind to settle down enough to get to the same level with him.

At some point, still in the train, I felt he was a bit ashamed of what we were wearing. I was kind of surprised about that thought. I dress sporty way, not feminine at all, and I would have thought that feminine dressing style would be something my boys could be embarrassed about, but I am not that type myself either I ques. But it was not about that we would look too feminine, it was more about that he has his own fashion sense, and our clothes look cheap. Well, they are cheap, I can't afford brands he would like to wear. I am still kind of surprised about that feeling. I would have someway thought that when I'm using the kind of clothes guys could wear too, like jeans and t's, or college pants and hoodies, sneakers etc. that would be enough. But yeah, I do get him. He would like to look good and stylish, he is a teenager and that is important to him, to fit in. But we can't afford his style in the outer world, he can dress like that only inside. Also I think his choices for clothes would be from the men's section, so clearly men's clothes and not female versions of the same thing, and I don't wanna dress like that. I am also very small and short, I think we would look stupid in men's clothes, how ever stylish they would be in the teen boys' world, we need to think how they look like on the body, because that is what other people see.

Rest of the day, I can't remember realizing anything interesting, except that I was pretty productive when I came home. I even called to bank to get one receipt from year 2012, in order to sort out some finances I totally couldn't handle then. I payed quite big amount of money (about 1 months rent) to dept collection agency then, which turned out to be fake agency. So they just took my money and never sent it to the person who they should have. I found out they were con artist with long history of that kind of crimes, and I just lost the money, because I didn't have the strength to try to sort it out back then. I would've just needed to get that receipt and sent it as a proof, but I didn't get it done for 6 years.

I got some kind of breakdown then about 5-6 years ago, and that's when I stopped paying bills and taking care of things like I should have. I also took little loans I didn't pay back and ruined my finances totally. Can't really explain why, until that we handled things like that like we should. (Or maybe our previous host did get the break down back then, because I think I have changed recently and am in a way new me now, but I do remember everything she did too.) After I realized I had started dissociating everything that has anything to do with taking care of finances (just stopped thinking about them, didn't check the mail at all to even see the bills etc.) I got help with it, and now I have support with that. I don't know what that is called in English, but we have person who takes care some of our finances, so my paychecks go to them, and they pay my bills and give me money every week for food and necessary things. They don't take care of everything though, we still need to send all applications to get support etc. ourselves.

I have done a lot of little things recently, things we lost ability to take care of then. Now I have all the papers mapped and little by little we are building back normal life and fixing the damage done in those 5 years. We have gone to doctors appointments and dentist and all little things we stopped caring about then. It's like a billions of little things to take care of, one paper to that office and another one to other office, going to the doctor, and then to another one, laboratory for 4 different times, all kind of things everyday, but we've been doing really good job lately. We've took care of everything just like we should. I am SO proud of that progress.

I think Lucas, the teen boy who is hanging out near me nowadays, is probably doing these things, or helping me to do them. We also got medication that really helps me. It's sedatives that affects thru entire day, and because it's been so helpful and we have been much better with it, I think it proofs that our inability to do thing before was due to anxiety. Even when I didn't feel any anxiety during the day, only on the mornings, taking meds that helps with it had helped us big time.

So.. that for today.. Now we're going to bed, and tomorrow I try to do some more observations.

It sounds like you have been doing really well

Thanks NyxX, I think we have.

So, today, Thursday 23.08.2018.. I forgot to observe me until I was out of work and on my way to get to buy some stuff I needed, and I was on the stairs down to subway. Then I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be aware of others. I assumed Lucas would have been there again, because he has been the one I have noticed mostly, but today there was someone else. He was there, at the seconds in when I started "feeling around" in my mind if someone is close. I don't actually know which way it happened, today and yesterday, was it me starting to pay attention and then finding someone there with me, or was it the other way round, someone getting close, and then me remembering them suddenly.

Today it was the 14 year old suicidal boy, who has DID. He was the host of their system who was "in their body", the one who is most close to me of them. I was surprised it was him and not Lucas, and I am kind of happy that it was him. Not just to "meet" him too, but to get some proof its not just that my mind does what I expect to happen, because I would have expected to feel Lucas again like I have recently many times. But it wasn't him this time.

Basically very same feeling with him than with Lucas, I recognized him from the little things, from his mouth and lips. The expression of his mouth is just bit different than mine, it's very subtle difference, I don't know if it's even something you could notice from the mirror, or just how it feels. I felt his posture and his way of walking, although he has several, because of his DID, but now he was his host self, the one who has been around for very long time. I felt he was a bit anxious, I think he doesn't feel it himself, because that is his normal, but I could feel it in my chest. He also looks at people and thinks them on his own way. He is kind of anxious and sad, even when he doesn't feel like it, because it is his normal, but that makes clear difference on how he sees the world. He feels in a way very alone inside, people around were just strangers, they don't know him or care about him. He has big abandonment issues.

Then we were about to go to the store we were going to buy the stuff we were supposed to, and when we got close, I felt he was nervous, he was thinking what would he say to the staff member to get what we need. He was worried how his voice would sound like, because he has never - that I know of - spoken with "my" mouth and voice. His voice was gonna be deeper, but he was worried how it's going to sound like, and if there wouldn't been other people around, he would probably wanted to say the sentence he was planning to say in the store out loud before entering, but he couldn't because of the people. He was repeating the sentence in his mind, practicing what he would say.

When we entered the store there were two staff members on the door saying hello, and we weren't expecting that, and without even thinking I answered and in the end he didn't say anything out loud in the store. He got surprised, and his plan was ruined, and I kind of just reacted to people in there, and didn't even think if he would've still wanted to try.

At home in the evening he said few words out loud to hear his voice, but felt maybe it didn't sound right. I said out loud you can try again, but he mumbled he doesn't want to, and didn't. I thought to him inside the head space that he can stay inside if he wants to, he doesn't have to come out as himself, but it's OK if he wants to come (in the future). I didn't get any answer to that at all.

In a way this is weird, we have never met like this before, but we have known each other for so long time, there wasn't any greetings and hellos, it was very natural for him to just come and go, like that would be what we have always done. Actually I have never before talked to any of them I ques. I thought they don't know who I am.

Apparently they kind of do, but it's all so natural, like I said, it's like this is the way how things have always been.

I'm feeling super confused right now. I've used to thinking about them as my imagination, and that they are nothing truly real, and I can use them the way I want to in my head. Now I suddenly realize that them becoming more alive and real, I can't do that anymore. It doesn't feel right. I can't just go to the head space and be in control of the stories happening inside, I need to consider they have feelings and listen to them.

In a way they are becoming much bigger and closer, and at the same time I am loosing my "other world". I can't think just anything that comes to my mind anymore. I need to consider them. I know it's selfish, but I don't like it. I don't like the responsibility. But at the same time I am very emotionally attached to them, and want them to come "alive" also.

This is just confusing.

Thanks for writing your observations, they are really interesting to read.

It sounds pretty confusing, I'm not surprised you feel that way! We felt confused for a long time, but with writing things down, slowly letting things out, our confusion has gone down a lot.

I think living with DID will always be confusing to some extent, as it kind of creates a bit of confusion just by living.

I hope you can go easy on yourself and take it slow

Thank you sleepingwolf. I thought this would be very boring to anyone else to read.

Today I made a new kind of discovery. I read my old diary. I haven't really wrote in it a lot, I have one diary and it's not even full, and there are writings from 1994 to 2012. There have been several years I didn't wrote at all, and years I wrote just a couple of times. It is because it has been so hard for me to think about me, so unnatural. I just have never been interested in myself, not at all. Only in people in the inner world.

I was writing about the 14 year old part yesterday, how he visited like it would have been something he has always done. When I first discovered him, he was 19 years old. At that time I had 3 parts I was aware of and they all were 19, if I remember it correctly. Non of them are 19 now, two of them are 14 and one is 16. So the boy who I mentioned yesterday was here also ten years ago, but back then he was older, he was feeling better, he had a different name and background. But he still is the same one. I wrote about him to my diary ten years ago.

I was very happy when I wrote. I started with: Now I have discovered how to solve all problems. I will take (name of the part I just told about) inside me, and I'll start living my life as if I was him. And at that point my handwriting style totally changes for the rest of the writing.

Back then I didn't know anything about dissociation. I didn't know different hand writings were a symptom and a sign of others. I even wrote there, oh how funny how my writing style totally changed, but I didn't know why. I found it now, ten years later and do realize how clear sign it is. It was natural for him to visit yesterday, because he HAS done it at least ten years.

There were a lot of writings in the diary that are clear symptoms of parts and dissociation, and which ones I didn't remember ever having. Probably because I didn't know what they were back then and that they were important. And also I am getting more and ore convinced I have changed to new me recently and don't have access to all of our past memories because of it.

That is how I felt when I went to see our possible future T for the first time too. We have a lot of problems, but we are actually doing a lot better now than we have before. I feel like I was there searching for help to old me, who isn't here anymore. I do realize we still need help, but ex-me would have needed it more to herself. I am here to get help for US, she would have needed it for herself way more I do.

Different handwritings were the symptom I was very sure I have never had.

I have been co-conscious with my parts of the inner world since the day they have been here, I think. In a way I do know that, but I have done it just different way I do it now, and I really didn't realize what it was. This is the new way of being with them, before it was just me sitting somewhere, thinking about what they do in the inner world, and I didn't think at all where my body really was, it just didn't exist, and I didn't exist.

When something interrupted me, like someone calling on the phone, I get really irritated, it was way too hard to change back to be the person who can answer the phone, the ANP me, whose job it was.

When I needed to be with other people, I found it exhausting. All the time I was thinking what the others were doing, and I needed to be present where I was too. I felt I needed to be in multiple places in my mind at the same time, and I just couldn't handle it. Sometimes, if it was something interesting I was doing, others did came to that same situation where I was, but not in me, but like having their own little universe next to mine. So I was in the same place, but in two different worlds at the same time.

My life was very limited all the time, because needing to be in different worlds at the same time was not easy, I got very tired after doing something with a friend or anyone. And back then my parts didn't live in the same world with each other either, so my brain needed sometimes be in so many places at the same time, no wonder I didn't have any energy to spend time with real life people. Also it was really hard to find anything to talk about, except animals, just because there was nothing happening in my life I could share with them. It was all inner world things.

At some point they get closer to each other, they started to know each other. I remember how I introduced them to each other. I imagined a lot they were in an elevator at the same time, not knowing each other when entering there, but then the elevator got stuck between the floors and they were forced to get to know each other. It took at least a year, or maybe even more, when I was having these thoughts about them meeting and getting to know each other, different stories and sometimes the same story told repeatedly again and again, like the elevator thing. It wasn't anything I planned to do, I didn't decide they need to get to now each other now, it happened naturally, they just felt the right thoughts to think. It wasn't me forcing them, it was just situation changing.

I don't remember when and how they got to be who they are now and when it started to be natural for them to know each other, but nowadays they in a way share a house, teens live in there, adults work there, one teen is dating a boy who lives in the house. They have changed in order to be together like that. In their history now, the elevator things and other forced meeting never happened, in my inner world the stories do change if needed. Backgrounds get erased all the time when they start all over again. Now the house is why they know each other, and they have some other connections to each other too.

Then I found a new way to be with them. I don't know for how long I have done it, my sense of time is very poor. I started to imagine I was them in a different way I did before. I have done that a lot, all the time when I was home alone, and I am home alone a lot. If I have for example watched TV or cooked dinner, I have imagined I was them, but not at my house, but where they are in my mind. So I have imagined their world around me and imagined I was one of them. I have read books like I was one of them, I have cleaned the apartment like I was one of them cleaning their room or home. Or I have just sat somewhere, being consumed into their world, but like I was one of them. My body in the real world sometimes moves like they move in that situation where I am in their world, I do gestures, I don't usually speak out loud, but my mouth in here can move like if I was talking, when I am talking as one of them in their world. But I have not been there as myself. So I can "see" and imagine their world, I always have, but it's not me who is in there. I have been somewhere between this world and theirs, and imagined myself being one of them.

Getting closer with them helped me a great deal with dealing the real world things. I am not in many places at the same time so much anymore, they live in only one world inside, and I have straight connection to them, it's not them in their own universe next to this one anymore if they get interested in something I do, it's me feeling I am them for a little while, and then the feeling goes away again. Because of that, it's not nearly as exhausting to do things, and my mind isn't trying to escape to somewhere else all the time same way it did for a very long time. It still does, but the worlds are closer and much nearer each other. That is why I started to have new energy, and that is why I can be in here today and I can try to solve things out.

I have been co-conscious with them a lot without realizing that's what it is. What has changed now, is me observing. And for the first time we have started to have new kind of co-consciousness. The kind where I am someone, and they are who they have always been, and we meet each other. In a way we haven't met before, because I have changed without realizing there is two of us. It never came to my mind I could say something to them, that it's not me having a role, or playing to be them, it's us mixing together. But now I stay in a way as me there too, at the same time when I realize them being present. And I have started to exist too.

That is why there is this new me. I have never before been anyone. I started to be someone when I started to think about them AND me as separate identities, who are part of the same system. Somehow I never before understood I am part of my own system too.

That is what the possible future T asked from me when I tried to explain to her I have this separate inner world, and I am no one in there. And she asked how would I draw our system. Who am I in there. And I said I am no one, I couldn't draw us on the same paper. It's been about three months when we saw, now it's all about sorting out paper work and finances so the therapy could really start, but I have now found an answer to her question. I understand there can't be system inside me without me. I belong to it too.

I have found an identity, and now I need to get to know my parts all over again, as someone who can actually communicate with them, and not just take them as granted without any role in it. We are all starting to get out of our head and enter a real life in the real world. It is completely new thing to me.

I am going to send an e-mail to my possible future T about what I have discovered, so that she would understand, that even if it's possible for me to see her only once in every three weeks, I CAN still make great progress. I have done it now too, on my own. I have found an answer to her question without really thinking about the question, but just observing myself. I can continue like this with a little help from someone who knows what do ask, and what to think, and make the work myself. That is how it always is anyway, Ts can't heal us, they just help us when we do it, but we need to do it all ourselves.

This makes me think of a theory claiming that the parts in a DID system are internalized imaginary friends.

I myself don't really believe that, but that could very well be because my experience (or, interpretation) is different. And in a way, anything's possible in a DID system, ofcourse. Same goes for interpretations of the whole shizzle:)

The reason, however, for not believing it; if it were true that the parts are internalized imaginairy friends (who deal better with the trauma's), it would mean that 'the original made them up'. Loose parts of a personality/identity that hasn't integrated getting their own (self-)awareness, outsíde of the awareness/ability to fantasize of the/some (ANP) other parts, makes much more sense to me. The development of a system is, I think, much more practical than a lot of scientists and T's think.

On the other hand it makes a lot of sense that a hurt and lonely child would 'make friends who help'. It's complicated and it messes with my denial.

Bejer, my story is different, that is why T wanted to see me two times and talk with her consulting psychiatrist about me, before agreeing to work with me. She said she had once a case little bit like mine, but back then, she wasn't experienced enough to treat that patient. That is how I understood her. But she was also interested, that she could learn new things about my case too, because probably my system works differently than most systems do. She was willing to be open and find out how it works, and not get stuck with how systems usually are.

The way my story is with inner world and it's parts is also the reason why I thought it could be "just" maladaptive daydreaming. There are lot of similarities. My inner world is changing and storylike, things can happen and be erased, I am emotionally very devoted to my parts. They are important to me, I could never see them as an enemy or, even when I have lacked so much things in real life because of having them, as an obstacle on my way. I WANT them to be true. I feel I have created them, not intentionally, but it just happened. I feel I know all about them. I don't think anything really happens in the inner world without me knowing about it, it's not something they tell me about, and it's not like real world, things happening all the time, but in fact very repetitive. I think new parts are being created in there without any trauma, when something is needed.

But they do have their own feeling separate from mine. That's why they earn to be taken seriously. And the truth is, I am now starting to have a whole new attitude considering to them. I can not know what will I found out, when we start to communicate. Maybe my point of view on this is not the only truth at all.

Also, I think I have another system too. These boys I have written about are from my "separate inner world". But I have experienced a little one visiting, and she was something very different from these parts. I felt she came from my body, not from where the others live in. The little one I have no connection with at all. I know about her, because she visited two decades ago one time. There can be many like her. I know nothing about them. They are not parts of the created inner world, where I learned to hide my feelings in, without ever totally loosing the connection to them, and them never getting in touch with the real world. Until now.

Boys of my inner world have traumatic backgrounds, but not similar to mine. I think in my body lives the ones who have my life events with them. For them I do need the T, I don't think I'm able to find and handle them on my own. With my boys I can progress with a lot easier. They are something that I know. They are my way of thinking. I think by conversations between them a lot. We have always been connected the way parts usually are not with the host.

It's weird why meeting them can still be like a totally new thing to me. To new me.

Floralie wrote:Bejer, my story is different, that is why T wanted to see me two times and talk with her consulting psychiatrist about me, before agreeing to work with me. She said she had once a case little bit like mine, but back then, she wasn't experienced enough to treat that patient. That is how I understood her. But she was also interested, that she could learn new things about my case too, because probably my system works differently than most systems do. She was willing to be open and find out how it works, and not get stuck with how systems usually are.

I get confused whenever you talk about how your system is different in some significant way from "most" other systems. Every system is very different, and I haven't read anything in your posts that sets it apart in some distinct way. I mean more distinct than any particular system is from another. People's inner worlds are so incredibly different from each other. And also, you're still learning about your system and how it's organized.

I think that your T must not have a lot of experience with the range of possibilities of how a system can be organized to have given you the idea that your DID is different in some way that would change what the treatment would be. No two systems are the same, but the general treatment approach IS the same. There isn't a way that most systems "usually are." Some have more co-consciousness and blending to begin with, and that's a good thing, because developing communication and cooperation among the parts are key goals of treatment.

Maybe I'm missing something, and if so, I'm sorry. There are some systems that are more difficult to treat for various reasons, but that doesn't make them "unusual" in the DID world.

There wasn't a diagnosis yet, if I understood correctly? Maybe it isn't the system that's so different from other systems, but the way you describe it and 'let things happen' (such as 'giving' your parts deseases and such) in there. To me your story feels very different from what I know first hand and read as well.

I think we all have various explanations for what's happening in there and that those explanations aren't always realistic as long as we're phobic of the cause/trauma's, combined with our traits. What's always the same; our personality isn't whole because we were traumatized from an early age on. What's never the same; how we view it.

With me it started with reliving parts/some of the trauma's at the age of 37. Then I came to the baffling realization that I'm not alone in here. Names and traits 'introduced themselves', or I sáw them, but I still have no clue what so ever of the inner world. It's just that I'm different identity states who all have different feelings and opinions about real life stuff (which sucks bigtime and I think is the most exhausting thing EVER). There are no stories in here, it's all focussed on real life (with sometimes véry unrealistic interpretations mostly when it's about 'calculating safety').

Those writers in here who write about fictional characters (but the stories are realistic, we don't do sci/fi/fantasy etc), are not very different from singleton writers, for example. That's just what writers do. They like language and they like creating stuff and so they write:) And I'm still wondering about the magical thinking stuff, I think that if there's comorbitity with for example autism, the inner world can be very fairytale-like, or have a lot of fantasy figures etc, and be more interesting for the system than 'outside'. Or even if the system is more introverted than extraverted. There are a zillion factors.

And that's perfectly fine ofcourse, you're welcome with your story.