Not hearing the alters again

I hardly hear them anymore. maybe 3 times in 3 weeks. Does that mean they were never there or are gone?

Nope. That happens often, to many systems.

But why this happens? I'm asking this because I'm in a situation where I can't see or hear anyone most of times, I can't switch also.

It can happen because of stress, being tired, being in a triggering situation, or because you really, really need to focus on the outside life (having something important to do, to met people, etc.).

Or also because things are calm and not stressful, which means everyone is relaxed and just watch without any comment.

Each system is different and will have different reasons why this happens

For us, things go silent usually when we're exhausted.

Things are silent for me sometimes like for 3 weeks. Things are almost always silent until at night. Last night they were talking a superman and a new alter said my name is CeCe. Also someone said they like German shepherds. Which I myself don't like that breed. I small breeds. It comes in waves. I've tried asking them if they can speak during the day. Maybe they dont because I am so focused on seeming normal. I have to seem normal not to be put on more psych meds. Also I have to seem normal to keep my job at the group home. I only get 200 twice a month but it's better than nothing.

Rive wrote:Things are silent for me sometimes like for 3 weeks. Things are almost always silent until at night. Last night they were talking a superman and a new alter said my name is CeCe. Also someone said they like German shepherds. Which I myself don't like that breed. I small breeds. It comes in waves. I've tried asking them if they can speak during the day. Maybe they dont because I am so focused on seeming normal. I have to seem normal not to be put on more psych meds. Also I have to seem normal to keep my job at the group home. I only get 200 twice a month but it's better than nothing.

Yea, that'll do it.

When I end up in a psychiatric hospital for the first three days I'm not with it so I can't say what happened, I rely on people to tell me.

After about three days defence kicks in "be normal" which for us in there this time meant no-one. Last time because the doctor was awful it was the twins - and they are not normal usually but in that emergency situation they not only managed the system so we seemed normal they wiped the floor with the doctor, rearranged the ward, made sure all the groups were happening that were supposed to but weren't under that doctor, started an application to sack the doctor, turned an assessment of our mental health by an independent panel (because the doctor applied to keep us for 6 months) into an exposé on the doctor to those officials, had several outside people running around after us so we had what we needed, argued rights of women (who had a smaller TV and no table tennis table but the women didn't want the table so they dropped that), got us a psychologist lined up for after we came out the hospital, had a couple of physical fights, learnt a new card game, got Rose reading tarot for money, found a patient's daughter they didn't know they had, comondered the PlayStation so patients could play it as wanted or watch DVDs, had the only room with an outside window, made friends with a crow that they fed (they shouldn't of done that), were asked by nurses to help deal with a very difficult patient, got us to A and E and had a coil removed that we were not managing to make happen even though it was giving us problems, ran the business we were running at the time, used leave from the hospital to keep the actual work of the business going, got our ex, our parents and two advocacy workers on our side. Did the crossword every day, attended every patient meeting their was. The doctor was some kind of sociopath the twins said. He wasn't there this time, this doctor was ok and No-one just "did the time" that's how she saw it but we got let out two weeks early. She had the only room in the place with Aircon, was the only patient with a laptop so that kept her quiet. When someone said to her "how comes you have a laptop" she said "how comes you haven't" - she is quite funny, you're not really allowed laptops but she didn't know that and took the woman personally.

Anyway in situations where you have to be seen as normal then a DID system will do just that as soon as it's possible. You're not in a crisis so your system isn't going to act out. You're relatively safe and seeming normal is most important so the only safe time for alters to communicate is at night. Makes sense.

*Trigger Warning - mention of SI and SH*

This thread is helping me understand what I've been going through. I went into the hospital August 8 and had a horrible time. Seven was real self destructive and Christian kept making the rules worse and worse to where we couldn't eat at all until they tried to declare us incompetent so they could tube feed us. Then we could eat, but had to vomit. It got out of control to where they thought we were gonna die and finally got us transferred to a hospital specialized in eating disorders so we had to eat. But that hospital said DID didn't exist and it was all in our head and for the most part Seven and Christian backed off to make the doctors stop accusing us of making excuses, to the point where I thought it was just excuses. I dissociated one more time in a crisis in that hospital and Seven came forward and was real suicidal, but they didn't accept him and wouldn't allow him to act on the suicide, so he backed off again until they thought everything was fine and so did I. We got discharged ahead of schedule on December 2 and I was feeling kind of empowered and in charge when I got home and first saw my therapist again. It was the first time she had ever heard me talk and ramble without Christian holding me back with the rules about talking and she thought they fixed me. Then Seven started coming out again at night and making us binge again and Christian started the rules again about not gaining too much weight and we started having to vomit at night and check weight in the morning and last week at T we couldn't talk much again and got sucked into the back inside and who was trying to front was overly anxious again like it was before and none of it made any sense to me because I thought like the hospital said, I was just making excuses with the talk about alters or parts for making eating disorder rules and following them. Now the voices are in the background again arguing and taking charge when we don't have to appear "normal" - mostly at night. So I'm functioning fine most of the time with them just taking over late at night and last week in therapy. I have therapy again tomorrow and worry who of us will be able to be there, whether I will be able to talk. I guess they just went into the back all that time because we had to be normal in order to survive the situation and now it's over, so everyone is coming forward again when it is safe. There does seem to at least be some agreement that we have to function normally and try to keep the weight up so we don't get sent back into the hospital so they stay mostly back when we are out in the world functioning each day, at least for now.

I'm sorry if I've gone off on a tangent, I've just been trying to make sense of the silence since I've been home. I was really convinced that it had all been in my imagination again.

KK

GKOKD wrote:*Trigger Warning - mention of SI and SH*

This thread is helping me understand what I've been going through. I went into the hospital August 8 and had a horrible time. Seven was real self destructive and Christian kept making the rules worse and worse to where we couldn't eat at all until they tried to declare us incompetent so they could tube feed us. Then we could eat, but had to vomit. It got out of control to where they thought we were gonna die and finally got us transferred to a hospital specialized in eating disorders so we had to eat. But that hospital said DID didn't exist and it was all in our head and for the most part Seven and Christian backed off to make the doctors stop accusing us of making excuses, to the point where I thought it was just excuses. I dissociated one more time in a crisis in that hospital and Seven came forward and was real suicidal, but they didn't accept him and wouldn't allow him to act on the suicide, so he backed off again until they thought everything was fine and so did I. We got discharged ahead of schedule on December 2 and I was feeling kind of empowered and in charge when I got home and first saw my therapist again. It was the first time she had ever heard me talk and ramble without Christian holding me back with the rules about talking and she thought they fixed me. Then Seven started coming out again at night and making us binge again and Christian started the rules again about not gaining too much weight and we started having to vomit at night and check weight in the morning and last week at T we couldn't talk much again and got sucked into the back inside and who was trying to front was overly anxious again like it was before and none of it made any sense to me because I thought like the hospital said, I was just making excuses with the talk about alters or parts for making eating disorder rules and following them. Now the voices are in the background again arguing and taking charge when we don't have to appear "normal" - mostly at night. So I'm functioning fine most of the time with them just taking over late at night and last week in therapy. I have therapy again tomorrow and worry who of us will be able to be there, whether I will be able to talk. I guess they just went into the back all that time because we had to be normal in order to survive the situation and now it's over, so everyone is coming forward again when it is safe. There does seem to at least be some agreement that we have to function normally and try to keep the weight up so we don't get sent back into the hospital so they stay mostly back when we are out in the world functioning each day, at least for now.

I'm sorry if I've gone off on a tangent, I've just been trying to make sense of the silence since I've been home. I was really convinced that it had all been in my imagination again.

KK

Long bit short I always knew from age 19 I wasn't schitzophrenic because a visiting psychiatrist to the ward I was on told me... He said "they will diagnose you schitzophrenic, you're not" So from that point, the start, I took my mental health into my own hands.

I don't know if this is helpful or you can do this but how I did that: in the early days I didn't know it was called DID or much about parts. What I started off doing was going to counseling. When I identified a problem in counseling I'd go on a self help course. Eg someone feels anxious and can't say no - 6 assertion courses later that was ok but I became aware that at the same time I had parts who'd punch someone in the face before they agreed to something they didn't like and so it went on and on.

Basically I identified problems within myself and took relevant help. Then I had a very good psychiatrist who asked if the voices were inside or outside, he took me off meds and when I had a crisis and wanted the meds back he sent me to psychotherapy. The psychotherapist was great.

Your issues with eating I'd address as an eating disorder. Sure people don't believe in DID but they believe in eating disorders so you take the eating disordered parts to relevent help.

The only things (major things) I didn't do was address the DID directly or deep trauma. It was all about having a basically happy normal rounded life - which we did and do still, things are getting into a good place again since the recent crisis but we're fully aware we need to address the deep trauma and ideally the actual DID otherwise it'll all flare up again possibly.

Take each part to relevent help is what I'm saying. Paul was our punch someone in the face person, didn't know it was Paul at the time, just panicked but went to a course on domestic violence abuse cycles three times because we hit the ex - turned out he was doing all the other parts of abuse and when it got to the punching part we were punching him instead, we didn't realize he was abusive at all and kept emotionally beating ourselves up thinking it was all us. But now Paul knows abuse cycles and unlike most people who are abusive in some way he has people around him all the time (other parts) and he can step back, see the cycle and step out of it. Also went on "non-violent resistance training" which some parts thought was good but Paul thought was hilarious because to him it was a course on how to placate a volatile person which he saw as stepping into the abuse cycle as a victim, we use some of that but not all.

The point is there's loads of different help out there and you can simply take parts to relevent help. Even when I didn't know the whole system or that it is a "system" the relevant parts eventually got the message they needed. Sometimes I did the same course over and over in different so it would "sink in" - that's what I thought I was doing but really it was so most or all or the most relevant parts could get the help they needed.

I don't feel I used Art therapy properly when I had it because we didn't trust the trainee therapist and didn't talk to her. But even that was helpful because we had a space to make art and internally assessed our own stuff.

Whatever help you can get take it. Even if it seems irrelevant or is nothing to do with DID because different parts can get help individually. I think if I didn't do that I wouldn't cope with fragments, the idea of trauma at all and I'd still be on medication, in denial of past abuse. Helping parts with their individual problems creates strength, it doesn't undermine anything.

You have to work with what's available until you're in a place where you have strength to work against it and say "no, I have DID" I ignored my diagnosis for years, I had loads, they become irrelevant after the first few. I learnt about them to see what the psychiatrist was saying or seeing but I focused on what I needed not on what some words said about me. I guess I dissociated myself from their diagnosis.

DID isn't even on the list here. I've been bringing it up, because I need to now, and they give leaflets on BPD even though current I'm "Bipolar" like they're saying "here have BPD, we can treat that one" That's the latest psychiatrists idea, re-diagnose me with BPD. I'm not having it this time, I need a proper assessment. I don't have Bipolar or BPD symptoms. I used to have BPD symptoms but nobody noticed that except me at the time when I was diagnosed with schitzophrenia, turned out it was Karen who had BPD traits. So they're ten years behind where I am with this lol, they missed the boat there because I would of agreed with them back then about BPD but Karen's had treatment for that. She's currently regressed and counseling herself - dunno how that works but whatever helps helps is how I see it.