New journey (thread)

TheGangsAllHere wrote:DID results from early childhood trauma, and people with autism (including Aspergers) can be traumatized by childhood experiences or interactions that might not traumatize a neurotypical child, ...

She also told me this same thing. The fact is, I might have had experiences that are traumatic that I already seem to have processed (and she agrees on this), but other psychologists (not her) told me that I might not remember something that happened in the past, because of some symptoms and weird episodes. But the fact is, she says, that if I don't remember anything then we obviously cannot work on it, and I agree with that. For this reason she decided to move away from trauma work, and concentrate on other aspects, mainly, the ones that led her to diagnose me with Asperger's. This to say that she's aware of that, but decided to deviate from the "missing memories" explanation because neither I nor anyone from my family remember that something ever happened to me in the past.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:... and that you're feeling more and more depressed don't seem like positive developments. Suppressing alters is not usually a good idea (and they might not be happy being considered characters resulting from your imagination).

Regarding this, I'm aware that they may not like it (if they're there), but I thought that this may be the best solution since I'm not actively putting an effort in repressing this stuff (or at least in my mind I'm not). I'm simply not thinking about them and letting things go with the flow. I may brush off some thoughts sometimes, but from what I've noticed, I just do that. And another point is that, from the beginning, I found out about them not because they were actively trying to take control and/or making my life impossible. I did that just by mistake essentially, under a sort of hypnotic or meditative state, and until that moment I only ever considered them as "the characters in my head". They (except one) never expressed the desire to take control or come out. From what I know, only two of them ever acted out on the outside, and needed to have some sort of contact with the world. When I decided not to think about them anymore, I accepted the fact that if urges or intrusive thoughts would have come again, then I would have mindlessly acted on them without thinking too much into them. But in all this time, no urge actually appeared in my mind. On the contrary, I feel that my head is pretty empty.

The fact that I'm feeling more depressed, it could easily be because of stress, and that's why I didn't want to read too much into it.

I'll make sure to talk to her about other stuff that may clarify the things she said, and I'm aware of the fact that some things are not exactly clear, even to me. I honestly still don't know if I should ask for another opinion from someone else. I might do it in the end if I feel like we aren't going anywhere.

Thank you for your reply anyways, and I hope you're feeling well.

Last session with T was weird.

I didn't remember if I talked to her about the story of one of them or not, and turned out I didn't. It's usually one of the first things that I mention with therapists, since it went on for now 6 years of my life, but this time was weird because I felt so frustrated talking about it and I became emotional (which I really don't like).

So, I talked to her about my obsession and delusion about Nico being "real", and the 4 years spent trying to "find" him in any way possible. I told her all the details about "feeling him" near me, and suffering so much about him not being really there that I became so depressed I had really bad thoughts every day. Not a day would pass when I didn't think about him, and the first therapist I talked about this with simply never gave me an answer. It was just "a presence". Apparently she thought that I used him as some sort of sobstitutive romantic or male figure in my life, but honestly I never had romantic (even less sexual) feelings towards him, so I never really understood why she thought that. The second one I told this is the one that told me this was a psychotic episode. She thought I was "totally healthy" except for this random psychotic episode. This honestly didn't make sense to me, so I was more than happy to leave her.

Now, since I'm sort of being desensitized about the whole thing, having talked about it many times, I just decided that my new T obivously needed to know. I told her everything, and since I tried to explain the emotional details more, being scared that she was going to react as coldly as the others did to the situation, I became sort of emotional and couldn't explain myself properly in the end.
She started telling me that he could be a shadow self (from Jung's theory of archetypes if I remember correctly). This, again, doesn't make much sense to me. The psychosis is almost clearer than this explanation. From what I know from the shadow self, shouldn't it be the total opposite? Like, the main personality actually avoiding the shadow self and people that remind them of it? Furthermore, it's said that the shadow self keeps in all the repressed emotions and impulses.
The fact is, Nico doesn't have any. He doesn't have impulses at all, especially in the last years. He's apathetic and pretty different from when he was then. Years ago he could also be violent, because he was very protective and very careful about everything and everyone, but he never had urges or impulses that I repressed. Shw said that he could represent my repressed anger and attachment to the past. I understand where she sees that I might have repressed emotions from the past, and he could have kept them with him, but, for examplem, I was always an easily angered kid, even when I was little. I never, or almost never, repressed my anger. I would write on my diaries, or express it in some way. From before this whole delusion started, I would sometimes totally lose it because of anger, but I never did the "I was angry, I was not myself" thing. I was myself, and I agreed with the things that I said when angry even when I was calmer (maybe just a bit exaggerated).
So, again, I don't exactly see the connection.

And furthermore, what are the others then? If he could be my shadow self, why is he not my opposite, like others (like maybe Xavier, or Hades are)?

I really don't totally understand where that was coming from, but I'll keep asking about it since she seems open to discussion.

This is just tiring at this point. I really want clear answers. I'm grateful that I discovered my ASD, but all the rest remains open and still makes me feel frustrated and exhausted. That's ironic, since my life seems to get better every day. I got a job, good grades at uni, decent relationships, etc. Maybe that's why I find it difficult to understand all my constantly negative emotional states.

exul wrote:So, I talked to her about my obsession and delusion about Nico being "real", and the 4 years spent trying to "find" him in any way possible. I told her all the details about "feeling him" near me, and suffering so much about him not being really there that I became so depressed I had really bad thoughts every day.

I now feel the need to elaborate on this, just because. I sort of never wrote this publicly from what I remember, and I feel like somehow I have to. Just to make it clearer even for myself.

From when I began thinking and feeling he was "real" 6 years ago (not as an alter or a personality, but as a real person that I had to find somehow), I began feeling extremely sad and alone. I didn't want to see anything that I thought was somehow connected to him, like "his" clothes on other people or people that looked like him, or I would became very depressed and almost always numb to everything and essentially felt like I was falling into a black hole. I would cry every night, and had many breakdowns in which I felt so hopeless and in pain that I couldn't get up from my bed or eat. My mom never noticed anything because I was sure to keep it all inside and hidden as much as possible, but having to go to school was horrible, and I felt terrible every single day. When I finally found out that he was in my mind, and I finally let him out to talk under hypnotic state, I instantly started feeling better. I knew that he was there, and finally I understood why the only way to make those feelings go away sometimes was to dress up like him and to generally look like him as much as possible. Luckily we have pretty a similar appearance, even if I'm biologically female and obviously younger. It just felt so right, when I was wearing "his" clothes, and had hair styled and coloured like his. One time, I remember clearly, I still didn't know that he was part of me, but it was late at night and I was listening to "his" music and mainly crying. I started feeling really weird, and my head begin to spin if I remember correctly. Then I looked at my hands, and realized that they looked like I've never seen them before. They seemed paler, longer, and mainly just like his hands. I started getting confused and started touching them, because they just felt so strange, and just not like mine at all. Then I rolled up my sleeves and I had the same thing with my arms. They looked longer, paler, and thinner than they already are. I started staring and them in total confusion and my anxiety started to build up, and ended up crying even more out of panic.
This was just one of the times in which I felt him extremely real, and I think that times like this just fueled my obsession and delusional thinking.

Like I said, I started feeling better when I began considering him as a real part of myself, and when I gave him the alter label, everything worked out just fine. My days didn't felt the same anymore, and even if I was still experiencing his almost-always negative moods, it was good.

Since the last therapy session, I started feeling like that again. I had a breakdown yesterday, in which I couldn't stop crying and just touching and looking at everything that I basically consider "his" (clothes in my closet, his accessories, his drawings). I'm feeling pretty depressed since I started not trying to talk to them anymore, but none of them actually gave me any signs until now. He's apparently always the one who brings me back to how I was before, if I try to get rid of him. Not even Xavier is fighting this anymore, from what I feel. It's just Nico in my mind, for now. I still don't know how to explain this, even from a DID perspective.

I might write more about him in the future, since details tend to come up in waves.
Hope everyone is having a good day.

exul wrote:

exul wrote:Like I said, I started feeling better when I began considering him as a real part of myself, and when I gave him the alter label, everything worked out just fine. My days didn't felt the same anymore, and even if I was still experiencing his almost-always negative moods, it was good.

Since the last therapy session, I started feeling like that again. I had a breakdown yesterday, in which I couldn't stop crying and just touching and looking at everything that I basically consider "his" (clothes in my closet, his accessories, his drawings). I'm feeling pretty depressed since I started not trying to talk to them anymore, but none of them actually gave me any signs until now. He's apparently always the one who brings me back to how I was before, if I try to get rid of him. Not even Xavier is fighting this anymore, from what I feel. It's just Nico in my mind, for now. I still don't know how to explain this, even from a DID perspective.

Well, it sounds like he is by far the strongest part--closer to the front and more easily able to be co-conscious with you. Perhaps the others are feeling discouraged and retreating rather than fighting back. I'm not sure what about this doesn't feel explainable to you from a DID perspective. Do you have a theory that fits your current symptoms better than that?

It really sounds like your T doesn't know much about dissociative disorders and hasn't been including DID as a possible diagnosis. From what you've reported, she seems to be trying to find any other possible thing that this could be. Does she even believe that DID exists? Someone who doesn't believe in it, or thinks that it is extremely rare, is not likely to diagnose it. Whether or not that's what's going on, it sounds like it needs to at least be strongly considered, especially when it's an explanation that helps you feel better.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:I'm not sure what about this doesn't feel explainable to you from a DID perspective. Do you have a theory that fits your current symptoms better than that?

Let's say that I don't have it, but this is precisely why I wanted to find out about other possibilities in therapy. My line of reasoning is that, if there's an explanation that I can understand and that logically fits with the all the (problematic) symptoms and conditions I have/I am experiencing, then I'm going to go with that, whatever that is. Because of this reason, if I see that a therapist doesn't understand or doesn't give me answers and stops trying to understand after a while (with a "it is what it is" mentality), I search for help elsewhere.

For this reason, when current T explained to me that for her I have Autism, she did tell me that all the things I experienced could be explained by that. So I sort of believed her at first, because I really wanted to and with a sort of expert bias going on, but since she's now not giving me any sources, or any proof of the fact that she actually knows what she's talking about when trying to explain the seemingly dissociative symptoms, I'm definitely questioning myself and the situation. I really want to believe that the Autism is what is going on, but I don't have the basis to believe that anymore. Furthermore, her trying to find another explanation for Nico that certainly doesn't fit with the ASD, tells me that she also doesn't know where to turn for explanations without going into a multiple-parts perspective (since she described the whole Shadow-self thing, which sort of has to do with the subpersonalities theory).

She also told me that she doesn't exactly has experience with Dissociative identity disorder, but that she's searching support and info for that. Apparently, people that adviced her told her that they're sure that I should be treated with trauma therapy, but she disagrees on that, always based on the Autism perspective.

Maybe you're right saying that she maybe doesn't think that DID is as common as it is, and that's why she seems like she doesn't dare talking about it. I think she's a very valid therapist after all, so I would like to keep her for now. I'll just try to make her understand my point as clearly as possible, and I hope this will lead us somewhere. If you have other suggestions I'd be happy to listen to them. Majority of people here have much more experience than I do being still pretty young, lol

Thank you for your answer, hope you're doing well!

So, I e-mailed T about some stuff and asked her what about some life episodes is connected to my Autism, and her response was a bit weird. Essentially she thinks my main problem is that I hear voices, which I don't. She also thinks that those voices are rude or are made out of my "deep fears" which, I see where she's coming from, but still they are not. They are never rude or violent towards me, and they almost always respected me as individual. They may not respect the body and engage in toxic behaviours, but that's it.
Next session will probably be a long one. At this point I don't know if it's me who explains things extremely wrong, since she's not the first one not understanding what I try to say.

This said; Nico keeps on being here. He goes to work and is always watching. It's really easy to trigger him. I tried going to work without him, but ended up essentially going really slowly at times and saying stuff that didn't make any sense to the people who were trying to talk to me. Don't know why that happened, but I felt extremely confused and my head spun at times. After that time, I relied on him because he's much more efficient and fast. This frustrates me, since he doesn't talk with anyone when he's working, and mostly ignores everyone. But at least I feel like I'm mostly co-conscious, so I try not to make us come out as rude when I can.

Maybe because he's so present, I realized something. He always had a very strong sense of protection towards me and Jason (being the main Protector). I thought back to when I was little, and when I began experiencing attraction towards boys and all that. Every time somebody liked me back, or every time somebody wanted to get close to me, I would start to feel nothing from the moment they "confessed" or from the moment they tried to deepen the relationship. I always blamed it on some sort of fear of intimacy, but that didn't match up completely. The things I feel for that person completely disappear the second after they try to start something, and I start treating them like garbage. I say terrible, insensitive things, and literally don't feel the slightest empathy for them, when I'm with them. Then I lose contact with them, obviously, and I start to "feel" again. I realize what I said and did, and I obivously feel guilty. Some of them I consider (or considered) my friends, and I still loved them after everything happened. But every single time I see them again, I feel like I'm on edge. I feel that it's me who wants to interact and befriend them, but (now I realized) someone else is like "no, they will get too close and you can't do that". It has always been like this, and I simply never realized that that could be Nico. All the things I say and think when I start feeling bitter towards those people, I behave really similar to how Nico usually behaves and talks.
I don't know why he does this. I'll try and think this through, but it'll be difficult to talk with him directly about this.

Anyone else has experience with this kind of behaviour from Protectors?

Ok, on the one hand I read what you wrote and thought "ok, that's good, maybe I have aspergers and I definitely have a really vivid imagination. So maybe I have that. This must be a really good thing for you to find out" But then on the other hand I thought "ok, so now you're depressed and actions that usually happen have disappeared from your life. Sure these actions are negative but they come from somewhere and not necessarily a negative aspect of your personality so that's not so good"

These thoughts culminate in a conclusion that because you over all as a whole person have been effectively disregarded by the "helping professional" ie therapist that you have shut down. Parts of yourself have shut down. The woman said basically bits of you don't exist so they've stopped existing in an actioning in the real world kind of way. The most scary thing to do when you have DID is to admit to anyone. If that person doesn't believe you, I tend to see that as a good thing, but with a therapist when you're trying to get help it's definitely bad. It sounds like it shuts you down. So as lovely and simple as it would be, imo but it's probably not lovely and simple for people suffering with aspergers, to have aspergers instead of DID it sounds to me that you've shut down and now you're depressed because the person you thought would help basically isn't.

I've had alot of therapists. I only ever told one therapist about the others. All the therapist helped me with whatever I went to them for but I didn't talk about the others or the relevant alter would go to therapy. The only therapist that knew happened to know because I was in three day per week group therapy. She moved me to one to one therapy and promised to not write about my alters or anything I told her or write anything about it in notes or I wouldn't talk to her - I don't know if she wrote anything or not but I decided it was so unbelievable that if it came up in the future I would say she made up, she retired but left recommendation that if I returned to a doctor for therapy that I had art therapy - I did have art therapy. Anyway she spoke to everyone including the twins, she gave them the idea of going subconscious and they were until very recently. She spoke to everyone. Eventually she moved us back to group therapy but one day per week. We didn't talk of alters in that group and she never gave us away. Because we got caught out in the three day a week group therapy we didn't see the point of hiding from her and also she promised not to write about us, we took her word but also had a back up lie plus we were one-one at that point it'd be her word against ours and not many people, especially then (10years ago) believed in DID. except this one psychiatrist that visited a ward to inspect it, he tried to get us to go to his hospital because he was "studying people like me" but we didn't trust him or that anyone could help us so we didn't leave with him, we were legally allowed to be held for 6months at that point and it was a better the devil we know decision.

Anyway I think tell the therapist she has shut you down. You feel disregarded and depressed. Or sack her and find some "helping professional" who is actually helpful.

Sarandipity wrote:The most scary thing to do when you have DID is to admit to anyone. If that person doesn't believe you, I tend to see that as a good thing, but with a therapist when you're trying to get help it's definitely bad. It sounds like it shuts you down.

I think you're right. I reflected on it, and came to the conclusion that she may have been trying too hard to explain what is going on with me under a non-dissociative perspective simply because she may not have a lot of experience with cases like mine, and I understand. I talked to her about it, but I'll go in more detail in the next reply just to keep this one short. I followed your advice and in the end she said to me that she appreciated my honesty (like I appreciate hers), and that she is possibly going to find someone else with which continue my therapeutic process.

This to say thank you for your reply, I appreciated the suggestion very much.
Hope you're well.

Nico is helping me write this one.

Last time with the T was good, I finally managed to be totally honest with her telling her that I sort of already thought about what was going on with me even before contacting her for our first appointment. I essentially omitted what I already knew about my condition and my own theories about it all just because I didn't want to influence her in any way, because I wanted to try and see if somebody external from the situation could see something else I didn't see, basically explaining everything under another diagnosis, or another perspective. This because I was and still am probably convinced that I'm making it all up, and exaggerating stuff because I want to feel special or less lonely, which could still be the case.

She in the end told me that she had something in mind, but that she cannot find any evidence for her theories. Basically being very honest with me about not having a sustainable ground when talking about all the theories she mentioned could be an explanation for what I'm experiencing (the shadow self, the "different wired brain" because of autism, an overactive imagination, and stuff like that).
I was very pleased about that whole thing. Not about her not having an explanation, but about her being honest and not forcing anything on me. She's the first therapist I've met that does this and I appreciate it very much.

She then in the end, told me that she too appreciates my honesty, and then she asked me about what should we essentially do now.
I told her that the path that I feel I need to go on is the one of integration, but that I really don't know where to start with that. I just know that under some aspects, I (the host) seem to be way more healthy than most of the others. So maybe that's why all other therapies never worked, and only made things worse. I feel like there has to be someone that concentrates on them, and not only on me, because I cannot solve their problems alone even if I would like to. I don't communicate well with them at all. I don't hear voices if not rarely, most of them are extremely private and refuse to write anywhere, and refuse to interact with anyone making themselves known. Talking with them in the inner world is extremely tiring and difficult for me even during meditation, because I often get intrusive thoughts that don't make concentrate on hearing or talking with them. It mostly seems like it's me talking with myself pretending to be them. The few times I know they're really talking, is when they switch out and talk with someone like our best friend/SO. Only then I know what they're really thinking/feeling. But they rarely switch out completely, and I'm usually aware of everything, or co-conscious.
She then told me that if I really want to do this, then she will make sure that I have the right therapist or specialist to help me in that. I'm really relieved about the whole thing, and I'm beginning to trust her a bit on this. I also sent her a book for clinicians when working with dissociative disorders just because I had the PDF and wanted to share it with her.

This said, I hope it'll go well and I'll keep posting to also summarise next session.

(Also, Nico said a week prior to the session that he would switch out to talk with the therapist if needed. I said that it was okay, but when the session began, I noticed that he at a certain point was pressing in the back, and panicked. I essentially just pushed him back again, and I don't know why. I was just scared of him talking with her, and maybe simply felt too vulnerable showing him to her. I tried saying what he would say, going straight to the point, even if I know he would have done it way better than me. Anyways, we managed to get the massage across. So it was good.)

Host wanted to put this here to keep track of things since we'll have out T appointment in 2 days. Nico has been out for most of the time lately, but now he's pretty exhausted it seems. Obviously, he was out 24/7 when he didn't really want to. Now it's my turn it seems. I've been out for like last week, mainly cause of work. I enjoy being out tho, I have my music and everything. I'm here for physical protection so I'm easily triggered out by random people we meet on the street in the city. Maybe that's why I'm out. I can sort of do Nico's work under that aspect.
Anyway yea, that's it. I'm Nathan by the way, the host is co-con and he's (they're? I'll never get the pronouns right honestly) letting me write stuff. I'm never out this much but yea. We're going to bed