How I came here and Thank you

The reason I ended up coming here was because after years of being and feeling "ok" I didn't feel ok. I'd had therapy and loads of classes and more therapy and had been generally "ok" for years.

Then I wasn't ok. I didn't know why I wasn't ok. How could it be that after years of co-operation and pretty much integration without integration that suddenly I was thinking in parts again, feeling in parts again? So I Googled searched DID and ended up here.

I was reading the post here on "everyone has parts, true or false" and a couple of people mentioned structural dissociation.

Then it made sense. I was great, doing well, life was good, making my goals and dreams realities and, you kno, living. But then I met a "sociopath" - I'm labeling him for simplicity. I let him in and he did what his kind do best. I did what I do best and scattered or shattered - however you like to view it. I prefer scattered because it gives the image of people running in different directions and that's basically what happened to me. Suddenly parts are talking to him, I'm switching, nothing seems wrong with the guy to me although it was obvious to my friends and my Dad - my mother says nothing and just enjoys me to suffer it seems but that's a side and ongoing issue that I was generally also managing very adeptly.

He's been gone a reasonable while now. I feel "ok" again.

What I hadn't realised for all the years that I was "ok" is that "the twins" had basically been asleep. I hadn't noticed and from a general perspective they're viewed as delusional so better asleep and forgotten.

However because the sociopath pushed my scattered parts to the edges and the four winds so to speak "the twins" woke up.

In the short term fallout of the sociopath I could see no benefit or lessons or anything good that could come from suffering this guy. But i just read the words "structural dissociation" and not only realised that's what happened due to his presence as a reflex reaction but also that there was a benefit to unfortunately encountering him - I actually got to know the twins. Yes they have vivid imaginations (because my vivid imagination allowed me to escape my childhood) that border on delusional if you run with them but they are "ok" They're not dangerous or deliberately trying to drive the rest of me mad, they are imaginative, creative and quite bright. They may not like it but I am not going to let them "Peace off" again because I lack without them, I lack a part of me. Yes i lived great without them but I know I'll live better with them.

So that's how I got here and that's what I realised.

Also without my shatter / scatter I think I would of completly missed that the guy I work with possibly has DID because I would of gone in to that work place in a much more centered mindset and completely missed his intricacies and I feel thankful to have seen them also, even though at first it was, to use a phrase I learnt here, a revolving door experience.

Thank you all of you who are here, putting it out there and saying your experiences because I realised what I needed to realise quicker because of reading all of your experiences.

Thank you all.

I've read somewhere, probably from here, I don't have any reliable source for this, but anyway someone has claimed, that many times systems live kind of quietly and in peace after trauma. At least until something happens, that is re-traumatizing or a new trauma, and the system "wakes up". That leads to a crisis and the crisis leads to a diagnose.

I don't know how usual thing this is, and how many start to get aware of others for some other reasons. Were you diagnosed, or otherwise aware of the others before you were further traumatized by that sociopath? Or was it when you found them all?

Your twins are what we call last line defenders. We have one, but he's inside Fourteens system, so he is an alter of an alter. He's also very weird, but rarely active. The thing about him clearly is tho, that he doesn't protect the body, on the other hand he doesn't come out if there is no threat about protecting the body already being impossible task to physically do. He protects the mind, and has a brilliant way to do it. His mind can not be damaged, it's too weird to begin with, and he doesn't care, he enjoys.

Floralie wrote:I've read somewhere, probably from here, I don't have any reliable source for this, but anyway someone has claimed, that many times systems live kind of quietly and in peace after trauma. At least until something happens, that is re-traumatizing or a new trauma, and the system "wakes up". That leads to a crisis and the crisis leads to a diagnose.

I don't know how usual thing this is, and how many start to get aware of others for some other reasons. Were you diagnosed, or otherwise aware of the others before you were further traumatized by that sociopath? Or was it when you found them all?

Your twins are what we call last line defenders. We have one, but he's inside Fourteens system, so he is an alter of an alter. He's also very weird, but rarely active. The thing about him clearly is tho, that he doesn't protect the body, on the other hand he doesn't come out if there is no threat about protecting the body already being impossible task to physically do. He protects the mind, and has a brilliant way to do it. His mind can not be damaged, it's too weird to begin with, and he doesn't care, he enjoys.

Yes I'd had therapy. Was aware and spent years on building a life incorporating all parts. Carefully picked a career goal that focused on all (which was no mean feat) and not on money or one particular skill set. I'd picked particular friends who I'd had as friends for about 5years when I met the sociopath (it's really difficult to get a good friend who gets on with each part).

They are definitely last line defenders, definitely weird and definitely do not care particularly about the body other than that they recognise the rest of me likes being alive so it's more a loyalty than their own sense of survival if anything.

They cause problems because they think things like "there's different dimensions. The mind can go to them" The rest of me is pretty much "normal" and gets weirded out because they clearly believe it and that feeling can be felt. It's like having sci-fi geeks who then explain it to you until you nearly believe them and you start to loose sense of the physical world but they've toned it right down, they've been in the background along while now and so far so good on the driving me "mad" talk.

Also randomly they can feel high which is also a problem. I don't know how they make the brain feel high - like smoking weed high - but they do. It's different to dissociation, they actually feel high. They think "omg this boring let's get high" and they're high so I'm having to make sure that's at appropriate times because I doubt they'll just give that up.

My plan before the sociopath was leave them asleep for years more, about 10 years to be more accurate. Then let them wake up so they could write their weirdness into books - they make up great stories but they drive me to loose touch with reality a little so it seemed better to leave them asleep. But i had completely forgotten about them until Patrick said to Rose "f it. Wake up the twins" because the guy was nearly driving us mad so better to let them drive us mad than him was the reasoning. At least I'd be going mad on my own terms not some guy slowly destroying all the hard work I'd done on myself.

And exactly what they did was protect the psyche. They unpicked what he'd done, unhooked every emotional hook and then ended the relationship on the anniversary of the relationship just before Christmas.

Yesterday I got out of the car and one of them said "that's it. It'll be like you never met him" and it has been since then. It'd be weird but it isn't because I just know that whatever they did they did it well and I feel like he has had zero effect. Which again is odd. His past ex's have injunctions and are living in hiding, I'm business as usual so its a weird reaction to this guy generally but not so much for me.

I used to question it, how I just feel ok, but I don't anymore because the alternative, from what I've seen does not look fun. The twins deal with the emotional stuff they black hole it, wipe the slate and start over. No other part of me could do that, so they let the twins do it. For an outdated defence mechanism it works reasonably well still. They say out of the negative good stuff can grow. So where they throw all the bad stuff into the void they know it can come back out good.

What they don't seem to be able to work out is how to get me to have a healthy relationship. They're at the "let's be polyamourous and have done with it" solution at the moment which sounds ok because monogamy has not worked so far at all.

But yes they are the last line of defence and definitely weird. I do think they have some interest in the body because since they've been around going to the gym again has felt safer - I had an exercise addiction problem so banned myself for years - I'm still frightened so they haven't got us there yet but I can feel that's an aim. Or yoga I think going back to yoga is more likely.

Actually now that I think about it, it can be that Fourteens last line defender is not just one alter, but maybe two of them too. It's hard to tell if there is actually two, or if the one is just using different names, which is also very much possible. Anything really is possible with him, he is not here to make sense. We've also been thinking if he has an alter, and therefor one inner body but two identities. We've only seen one, but they can also be identical, so how can you tell from someone like that. He doesn't answer to normal questions normal ways, more like with riddles or something which doesn't make any sense to anyone else but him. We don't even know if he is trying to make sense, but can't, or if he's just playing.

About the structural dissociation, I'm learning the theory behind it, and it is just a theory and it has it's own flaws like all theories do, but for me it has been life saving. That is why I found my way into the right places, in here and to therapy, and understood what is wrong with me. I never understood WHY and WHAT is wrong with me, until I found that, and suddenly everything made sense. More I learn, more I find things that match, and I feel I am not so weird after all, all I have is normal reaction to life I have lived, but couldn't deal with.

Floralie wrote:Actually now that I think about it, it can be that Fourteens last line defender is not just one alter, but maybe two of them too. It's hard to tell if there is actually two, or if the one is just using different names, which is also very much possible. Anything really is possible with him, he is not here to make sense. We've also been thinking if he has an alter, and therefor one inner body but two identities. We've only seen one, but they can also be identical, so how can you tell from someone like that. He doesn't answer to normal questions normal ways, more like with riddles or something which doesn't make any sense to anyone else but him. We don't even know if he is trying to make sense, but can't, or if he's just playing.

About the structural dissociation, I'm learning the theory behind it, and it is just a theory and it has it's own flaws like all theories do, but for me it has been life saving. That is why I found my way into the right places, in here and to therapy, and understood what is wrong with me. I never understood WHY and WHAT is wrong with me, until I found that, and suddenly everything made sense. More I learn, more I find things that match, and I feel I am not so weird after all, all I have is normal reaction to life I have lived, but couldn't deal with.

Answering in riddles is very much like my twins. They don't seem to make sense but often it turns out they do. They're favourite thing to say, one of them, is "how can you be sane in an insane world. That would be insanity" - crazy yet perfectly sane at the same time. Which is how they do my brain in.

It's like talking to the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland or the Mad Hatter or even the Queen of Hearts - the twins love her saying about thinking of one hundred impossible things before breakfast.

I only just saw the female twin recently even though I "knew" what she looked like once I saw her. You know like when you meet someone but you feel like you met them before, it was like that but internally obviously. The twins very much kept to themselves with Mandy untill this guy. I think the guy drew Mandy out, upset everyone else and then they stepped in. And they hid behind being "delusional" and "making no sense" so they were left alone. Like I said I've had them around in the background for a while now and after the first few weeks they've not said weirdness or swayed perception of the material world - I find it important to live in the physical material world because of the nature of this disorder and they have learnt to accept that and respect it so cut out their nonsense.

Maybe your weird alter could do the same if there's more communication?