Is this switching?

Purplesky wrote:

ArbreMonde wrote:Purplesky, the core component of dissociation and DID is NOT the presence of different identities despite the fact that the media focuses on this point. The core components of dissociation and DID are:

marked discontinuity in sense of self and/or agency, accompanied by changes in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning. In addition, the person experiences dissociative amnesia (DA), a disruption in autobiographical memory that includes gaps or difficulties in recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events

From what I understand there is no need to notice/be aware of identity differences to check the "discontinuity" parameter. Moreover, OSDD systems and some DID ones can have many "versions" of the same identity rather than very different alters, and still experience the issues with the discontinuity of the self and agency.

The discontinuity is the core of the issue. The identities/alters are in what I understand of it, a mere "bonus" for the brain to manage the different dissociated parts.
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Daniel.

yes, but that is what DID is, dissociated identities. without alters, it would just be a general dissociative disorder. DID is also stated to have the presence of two or more identity states that can (and do) take control of the body. there may or may not be time loss between alters (usually this is worked on in therapy or naturally can occur), but there still can be memory disruption even if it's for past memories.

i agree that a person doesn't have to be aware of alters to have them, but to be classified as DID, alters still do need to exist. there are many people who have no awareness of alters until later in life.

you can have time and memory loss without an alter taking over. that's why there is a spectrum that describes some of the ways it can be experienced.

i personally experience a lot of different types of dissociation that aren't all related to DID. it can get confusing to know what is part of what.

You guys are getting to the heart of my confusion. But really, I shouldn't have gotten so mixed up.

I finally backed off trying to bulldoze my way to understanding and gave myself a short break. I have "tried on" most variations of dissociative disorders to see what seems to fit. The best I can come up with would be secondary structural dissociation... I guess that would count as OSDD-1 (but does with amnesia/without alters fit into that category?)... I'm done obsessing over it at any rate, in my mind I'll just go with secondary structural since that about nails it for me. (single ANP, multiple EPs)

I'd really like to know what happens during the blackout periods though. I can only guess that I'm blending hard with an EP to the point it knocks my prefrontal cortex off line... that only makes sense if driving and such is stored as right brain/muscle memory or that the EP has access to my higher functions. Although I do think I have a few fragments, which is a concept that still muddies my waters-- I guess those are close to an alter, just not as developed? From here I'll just wait to see what the new T has to say.

And... I'm still in quarantine, so this may take a while to show up. I'm really not intentionally avoiding this thread!

We need here to go back to the core of what is an identity, a personnality, and what it means to be dissociated. For more informations there is the book The Haunted Self. Also keep in mind that the name of the mental health categories is not always a good description of what is going on. "Autism" as an example is a descriptive of a trauma-related self-isolation behavior, and does not describe the autistic neuroatypy properly (which is more of a data-specialization and hypersensitivity of the brain instead of the more common social-specialization with less sensitivity found in "neurotypical" people).

The personality is how we react to the world. Integrated people have one adaptable way to react to the world and think about the world. They can modify and regulate their reactions and thoughts depending on the context while in the same time keeping their ability to engage into all the other reactions and thought patterns of the other contexts. Dissociated persons on the other hand, have all their reactions and thought patterns stored into different, context-dependent parts of the brain with little communication between them. When they engage into one of them, the others become near inaccessible, leading to rigid and less adaptable behaviors and thought patterns. A lot of them are re-enactions of survival mechanisms from the time of the trauma.

Sometimes the dissociation between the different "personality packages" is so intense that the "host package" (the one piloting the body most of the time) is not aware that the others exist. Note that "not being aware they exist" does NOT mean "they do not exist". Blackholes existed before we became aware of them.

The identity is the sense of self and agency emerging from the integration (connextion) of different areas of the brain. The more areas/functions/memories are connected together in one package, the more this package will develop a complex sense of self and agency. Parts can exist and pilot the body independantly without a complex identity but the sense of self and agency IS disturbed because the main "I am aware that I am me" identity will realize it was "not me" who did it - or even have full on amnesia. Moreover, very dissociated /depersonnalized/ derealized people may not be AWARE that they have different identities because they are too unstable. The host part can also be unaware of the existence of the other parts. Which does not mean they don't exist! It only means we do not see them yet.

If you check all the DID boxes appart from being AWARE of different identity states (senses of self and agency) it cannot rule out DID - neither is it a proof that said other identities exist. BUT what it means is, you are very dissociated and could benefit from anchoring and stabilization therapy, as well as trauma and integration therapy. You could also benefit from journaling (in private or here or somewhere else, depends on what makes you feel comfortable) about your daily inner experiences. We found old journals of our inner experiences and it turns out we had been kinda aware of our dissociation for years in some "on and off" way (we forgot about it right away after writing about it). It took us becoming stable enough to be able to face full-on the fact that we are many. Well, we're down to a few now with all the sub-systems fusing together with the therapy, but I digress.

So, yes, you can "switch" "without alters" - because you can have dissociated parts without them being elaborated enough to form their own easily-percieved identities, and also because you can have more than one identity state without being aware of it yet. It takes a lot of time, journaling, therapy, stabilization of your life... and the help of a proper therapist, to figure things out.

Keep in mind that all your dissociated parts ARE you even if they don't "feel" like you. All of them exist in order to help you survive. They cannot to things that you wouldn't have done had you been fully integrated. (I don't mean they cannot do "bad" things, I mean that if they do "bad" things it's because integrated-you would have done them, and so if they do "bad" things it's the whole of you, all of the dissociated parts, who need to work on it together the way an integrated person would need to do.)

I hope it clarified things.
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Daniel.

Daniel.


That is a huge help. I've been struggling with these concepts for weeks trying to understand where I am at and getting frustrated because I'm not getting it. In the last couple of days though things seem to be falling into place. As of now I don't think I have any alters, more like a box of fragments and parts... Even what I consider to be "me" is an incomplete part.. "I" am short of affect and disconnected from my sexuality and therefore incomplete... an apparently normal *part*. Oddly enough, that is a huge relief to understand and accept that idea.

As for the other parts, I have several that I have contacted recently or have always been aware of. The confusion for me came when I was trying to fit them in as alters when that's not what they are. They are very functional, but too narrow in scope to function on their own without me, the ANP.

Like I say, I've been working through this for some time, it's been trying to come together for a couple of days and this morning I woke up with the clearest picture I've had yet.

So far I can identify:

Me, the ANP, which is the most complete part which is the intellectual part that relies on reason and logic to navigate the world. (Would this be the "host"??? I'm guessing so.)

The rest seem to be fragments or EPs....

Aunt Jane, a fragment based on female Aunts and Cousins. Jane knows about people and can gauge their motives and trustworthiness. She's very protective and honest (cuttingly so). She has been in my head every since I can remember. I can see and describe her completely and hear her voice as if it's my own.

TIO (Tough It Out) is a male fragment whose job is defense, protection and escape. TIO is the one who makes sure I keep a low profile.. quiet and hidden. I'm not sure, but I think TIO may actually be behind most of my amnesia, when things get too dangerous I suspect he takes over and bails me out of a situation. He will talk, but very little unless he's warning me of something. Ageless. I can mostly describe TIO's look, but he's hazy. I know exactly about TIO's origins.

Red. I can barely touch Red. I hate to use the description, but the look is demonic. Red is an abuse holder and contains two sub parts, two jade dragons- one blue and one green. My sexuality and attachments are here, somewhere. Can't really explain much on this one, but it's deep and the imagery is clear.

Athena.. a manager/defender and maybe an abuse holder as well. Mostly concerned with controlling me through deciding which EPs get activated. It's all about keeping me out of situations where I can get hurt. But she will not hesitate to hurt me in order to maintain control. Like Red, she has two sub-parts which are a pair of highly neurotic bunnies, Pink and Blue (Pink is reactive and Blue is proactive towards threats). When Athena releases the Bunnies, all hell breaks loose and I totally blend with their neuroticism...That's usually when TIO decides to take over and bail me out.

The last ones I know very little about, both are me at 15 years old. One is the light side that is healthy and full of life, the other is the dark side that contains anguish, depression and some really toxic self concepts.

I know there's more, but I'm not going to dig too deep for now. Finding Red really caused me problems and has made me more cautious.

And all this is based on what little I know about IFS... finding and getting to know the parts. This stuff has been in my head for some time now but it was only this morning that I have accepted it as my own reality, it kinda gives me hope/makes me feel that there is some structure here that I can work with. I'm fragmented, but the parts aren't lost which means I might be able to glue things back together.

I think it might be psychological protection.
It doesn't have to be dissociation. Various mechanisms are possible, for example repression, when a person forgets a stressful situation.

I thought that "repression" was the psychoanalytical word for "trauma-related dissociation/amnesia"?

ArbreMonde wrote:I thought that "repression" was the psychoanalytical word for "trauma-related dissociation/amnesia"?

Suppression is a separate psychological defense. And it is not dissociation. Dissociative amnesia is not repression.
Dissociation, if you take its easy option, is a rejection, a refusal (this is not with me, but with someone else). If we take precisely the difficult option with the presence of subpersonalities, then the psyche creates for itself someone who has an unpleasant memory or the desired state. And it breaks away from him (this happened not with me, but with him. It was not me). When alters are created, fragments of memory are transferred to him, and with them the experience. And this does not happen during repression.
Repression is a rejection of oneself personally and remains in the subconscious (forgetting). When dissociated, it is assigned to an alter. Alter as a subpersonality can also have its own psychological defenses.

It is odd because in the Structural Dissociation Theory (SDT), (the book "The Haunted Self") both mecanisms are called "dissociation". Either it is just "hidden somewhere" or enough elements gather together that their own sense of self and agency can emerge, this forming an alter rather than "simply" a dissociated part/fragment/memory.

Though different words are used according to different models, the SDT gathered all the similar mechanisms under the name "dissociation" because why discriminate between them when they are basically the same thing with a different level of intensity?

Or maybe I'm lost in translation somewhere. It's another possibility.
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Daniel.

ShadowsMoon wrote:

ArbreMonde wrote:I thought that "repression" was the psychoanalytical word for "trauma-related dissociation/amnesia"?

Suppression is a separate psychological defense. And it is not dissociation. Dissociative amnesia is not repression.
Dissociation, if you take its easy option, is a rejection, a refusal (this is not with me, but with someone else). If we take precisely the difficult option with the presence of subpersonalities, then the psyche creates for itself someone who has an unpleasant memory or the desired state. And it breaks away from him (this happened not with me, but with him. It was not me). When alters are created, fragments of memory are transferred to him, and with them the experience. And this does not happen during repression.
Repression is a rejection of oneself personally and remains in the subconscious (forgetting). When dissociated, it is assigned to an alter. Alter as a subpersonality can also have its own psychological defenses.

This is true only from a psychoanalytical / clinical psychology point of view. Other theories and areas in psychology may have another meaning for both repression and dissociation.

In some areas, repression isn't even considered as a valid concept (I will always remember my cognitive psychology teacher who was coughing "Voldemort" every time someone talked about repression, or the un/subconscious, in class...).

In the Haunted Self and in many areas of the psychotrauma field, they consider both phenomenon to fall under the same dissociative mechanism.