myself and ego states. finally, some answers.

The more aware I become of the processes that take place in my mind, the more I am coming to the conclusion that what I am experiencing is changes in ego states, and that I do not, in fact, have alters. It's all finally starting to make sense.

Despite trying to "go inside" and talk to myself for many months now, I have come up empty handed. Sometimes I get voices that answer my questions, but it's more like myself answering my own questions, not someone else answering them. Sometimes I hear angry voices shouting in my head, but I don't think they are alters. I think they are introject ego-states, and it is more like a tape recorded message than a part that I can have an actual conversation.

Anytime I drastically change states, it still feels like me. Sometimes I am more dissociated than other times, but the majority of the time I am just as present as I was before I changed states. Also, often when I change states, I don't actually feel any shift or "switch" take place. I just become younger, or I become angrier, or quieter, etc. Physically, I do not feel a change.

When I am in a changed state, if someone asks me/that part questions about myself/itself - for example, what is your name, what is your age, what kinds of things do you like - I always gets confused. The part never knows the answer to these questions. It doesn't feel a strong sense of identity. It just feels like a different version of myself, or "Caroline".

The two primary ego-states besides the "main" ego state which is my usual happy, easy-going state is a child-like ego state (who I had named Coraline) and an angry ego state (who I had named "R", for rage). These are the most consistent states that overtake me on a regular basis. When I am in my childlike state, I am pouting and am usually feeling overwhelmed and hating myself. Feeling like I've done something horribly wrong and should be punished. When I am in my angry state, I am very direct, much more so than I normally am, and I hate the world. I have a stern look on my face, my jaw is clenched, I try to avoid eye contact, and overall I am just very angry. When I get into these states, it doesn't "feel" like me, since the mood/state seems to come in and take over me in an instant, and I can feel the change in persona, and yet I'm still in control, just in a different mindset. These are the main ego states that have consistently presented themselves over the last six months. There is another state, one that is extremely shut down, that occurs when something happens and I feel attacked or threatened.

These states are quite familiar when they come on. I am learning to accept them more, and try not to force myself out of them like I used to. For most of my life, I've hated how I would change, and it would feel so out of control, and I hated that I would act in ways that I didn't think were appropriate and I wished I could just "snap myself out of it." But I am learning not to judge myself when I am in one of these modes, and be kind and loving to myself and just allow myself to be in whichever mode I am without judgment. I used to think (when my last therapist thought I had DID) that these modes were alters. I'm starting to see that this is not the case. Alters, it seems, have a sense of identity that is different from the main/host personality. They feel like their own people, with a certain age (or age range), and their own preferences, just how different people have their own preferences. The thing that has been so confusing for me is, when I was thinking of my child mode and my angry mode and my shut down mode as alters, I couldn't understand why I couldn't find out more information about them. Their likes, dislikes, etc. Parts of me would always answer "I don't know" to any question I would ask of them. It felt like I was a dog chasing my own tail. Trying desperately to learn about these parts of myself, but coming up empty handed. But it dawned on me that it's not that they didn't want to tell me, it's that they don't feel that different from me! They truly don't have preferences of their own. They don't feel like their own people, they feel like a part of me. It now makes so much sense.

I realize that much of what I experience is similar to what someone with DID experiences, just not at the same level. What I mean is, I dissociated certain feelings because they were too overwhelming when I was younger to experience them. The sadness, the anger, the rage, the self-hatred... all these emotions were dissociated into ego-states that hold them for me. These are all parts of me, and they feel like parts of me (and they know they are parts of me), and at the same time these parts are holding these big, difficult emotions so that I am not overwhelmed by them on a daily basis. So that I could continue to function. I just don't have the same sense of difference between myself and them that I imagine people with DID experience. But because I still have dissociated parts of myself, I can relate so much to what people with DID experience.

Thank you all for continuing to be so supportive of me on my journey of self-discovery. I am finally starting to make sense of it all, and it feels really good.

I'm glad to see you are feeling at peace with your answers to your questions. You've had a long tricky journey of trying to understand what is going on for you. I'm glad to see you think you have resolved it somewhat.

Bourbon

I am glad that learning about yourself like this has helped you to feel better.

May I make a suggestion though? This has helped me, and since I see a pattern of you going back and forth with your self feelings, I don't know if it will help you or not. I do know that it has helped me. I came to a strange place where I realized I just didn't care. Didn't care about whether or not I have child states/alters/whatever. Didn't care about the label. Instead, I just do what I know I need to do for my body and my brain.

When I feel child like, I try to do things that will help to comfort me. Unfortunately this does not always work lol because often when I feel child like I don't really care much about anything except whatever I am feeling at that moment. However, this much I know is fact: I sometimes act very child like. I sometimes act very different and unemotional, at which time I am very protective and logical thinking. I sometimes feel and believe things about myself and my sexuality that are completely opposite of what I consider to be my actual sexuality. At these times, I also "act differently." MEaning, my physical mannerisms, my voice sounds different, my facial expressions are different. Yet I still feel like I'm me.

Influence from alters? I don't know. I have come to accept that I don't know. Maybe I'll never know. I could die tomorrow without having ever found the answer. And while I hope I do find the answer someday, I have learned to be content with just accepting the states/alters/whatever as they are, letting them out freely (as freely as possible)when they seem to be "out."

I hope I don't sound like I'm pushing you to "accept" things or change your point of view or anything. I just hope that you continue to love and accept all the different parts(dissociated or not)as beautiful, because, even if they are dissociated, they are still technically "you," and YOU are beautiful!

But wait a minute, what do your alters think about this awareness?

Just kidding, it makes terrific sense and it sounds like you've hit the mark. I know this has been a long, frustrating search and I wouldn't be joking at this point if I didn't know you had a sense of humor. It's too bad this wasn't able to be diagnosed before but the state of affairs is so chronically subpar among therapists in recognizing disorders along the dissociation scale, let alone specifying where they sit along that scale. Hence some therapists who are ready to diagnose DID based on self-reporting and others who won't until there is absolute proof of switching in front of them. Aren't there guidelines out there? Dissociative disorders are still woefully misdiagnosed as something else. The state of understanding seems medieval compared to what I'm sure it will become. This is not to excuse individual therapists, including yours. They're dealing with our well-being, in many cases our very lives are at stake, and they really need to be bringing their A game. Unfortunately, many only have a C game. I say that because I've had so many mediocre therapists, some nice caring people who may be quite effective for some patients but haven't been for me.

The work A Man's Recovery from Traumatic Childhood Abuse: The Insiders by Knight does describe someone dealing with dissociated ego states, not alters. There was a distinct difference in his parts from alters, but a lot of overlap too. They were insiders because he dealt with them in trance or reverie. He did give them names or descriptive designations to keep track because there were so many states and they shifted and split over time. Some were female but they never took over, nor did he ever lose time per se. He did dissociate and have characteristic repeating negative behaviors that helped him segregate overwhelming emotions. He and his therapist described them as ego states, parts of himself that held different traumatic memories of which he himself was amnesic.

Now his particular experience may have been a little bit more on the scale toward DID but it sounded much more like what you've described. These ego states were actually dissociated from his normal self, not so much as distinct identities but more as sets of behaviors and states of emotions. He did seem to be able to have conversations with them but only in reverie. The abuse this man suffered was particularly gruesome but I'm sure there are other works out there that you could relate to to help validate your own experience of dissociated ego states, not that you need that. I think it would behoove us to find them and post them on the resources link to help others who come here trying to define what they have along the dissociative scale. With a continued lack of clarity and diagnostic criteria in the DSM (dissociative disorders compared to other psychological disorders), we may need to keep turning to articles and biographies in order to have that experience "yes, that's it, that sounds just like me."

This actually does make a lot of sense. I hope it's right, and you've finally figured out what's going on inside of you.
~Rage

Bourbon~ thank you.

Divided ~ I hear what you are saying, and I agree wholeheartedly that the name or label given to parts doesn't really matter, or really shouldn't matter. However, as JJ stated, there is a difference between dissociated ego states and alters, and I think a big part of my problem (and frustration) has been that I've been treating these parts as if they were alters, or rather I've been assuming they were alters. I've been trying to get to know them and give them the acceptance and validation they deserve. And yet rather than this being a process of uncovering new things and finding answers, it just led to more confusion and blurriness. I know my parts (at least some of them) fairly well, and I know that they feel very much a part of me, versus their own individual person. I am saying "they feel" even though that is inaccurate, since that implies they have their own set of feelings unto themselves, which just isn't the case. I'm not saying this to invalidate these parts, I'm saying this to validate them. I am actually quite open to the prospect of DID, and to discovering if these parts are, in fact, alters. I'm not ruling that out as a possibility. But at this point it seems highly unlikely, given what I know. I'm sure it will just grow clearer and clearer as I go along, and I'm looking forward to continuing to learn and find out more about myself in this process. I don't see this realization as closing myself off to the possibility of anything, but more of gaining a clearer sense of what's going on. And it feels really good.

JJ ~ Bring on the jokes! I love it! Thank you for all you said. I feel as though you really get where I am at, and that feels quite validating.

Rage ~ thanks

I am happy for you!

I know you have had your doubts and its of course best you don't have DID!

Have you read the book Internal Family Systems Therapy by Richard C. Schwartz?

I am reading this and its amazing how the "polarized parts" of the normal brain are very DID like! They communicate and the whole bit! I say it all the time... the DID brain and the normal brain and not all that different. The DID brain is just more .... extreme for lack of a better term, but certainly more dissociated.

It sounds like you are really starting to understand your system, I think that's awesome. I've seen you worked so hard trying to understand, you got some awesome breakthroughs!