Discovering DID – Introductions

SOLO (29 M), Lilly (29 F), Sunflower (19 F), Leo (8 M), Wayne (29 M), Little G (14 M), Tilt (29 M)

SOLO: I’m not sure how trigger warnings and such are supposed to work; what words I’m supposed to avoid using, but I figure saying that in and of itself will work as a warning of sorts.

For most of my life I had been fairly socially isolated, never had any friends, no real close ties to family, &c. I’m emotionally flat and lacking in drive to connect with others. Over the past few years my feeling of disconnectedness with the rest of the world was intensifying. Beyond that disconnect too, I had a feeling that I was splitting from myself, the things I’ve done felt like I had been watching someone else do them, rather than them being my own experiences. I was in a constant state of having to remind myself of who I am, while simultaneously I was fundamentally aware that “I am me.” With no outside connections, the feedback that I was able to conjure up about myself had primarily come from within. A feedback loop, the internal dialogues with myself became obsessive and repetitive to a point where I became chronically unproductive at work, school and everyday life. It was with that, feelings of depersonalization, identity confusion, obsessive and repetitive thought, that I sought out a therapist five months ago. It was an attempt to get feedback on what exactly was going on with me, feedback from an outside source.

I was initially diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder, a diagnosis I was originally given ten years earlier when I saw a therapist for the first time. I continued to go to therapy because I felt I was getting the feedback and validation I wanted; but even though I was getting that, I wasn’t getting any better. The internal dialogues became more intense, I was feeling disconnected from my body more and more. Not making any progress, something I had experienced with my first bout of therapy too, I was just about ready to give up. But then something unexpected happened.

A few hours before my twelfth therapist appointment, I was asking myself questions, wasting my time as per usual thinking about thoughts, but surprisingly this time I was getting answers. What was weird though, was that the answers were coming from a different source; internal, but someplace other than me. Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. That day, after three months of seeing a therapist someone else besides myself made an appearance at our appointment. Our therapist had met an alter.

Lilly: We were diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder a couple months ago after one of us made a surprise visit to our therapist appointment one day. We’ve been lurking on this board for a while, but wanted to introduce ourselves. I’ve taken the time to record our introductions and share them below.

Sunflower: Hi, since I’m the one who wanted to introduce us, I’ll go first. My name is Sunflower, or “Himawari” in Japanese. I’m 19 years old and I’m a girl, even though our body is a boy. Lilly says I’m creative and friendly, but I’m also a bit timid and emotional sometimes. I like art, design, cooking, history, and learning Japanese, I like Japanese music and culture too. I’m part of the reason we went to therapy in the first place. We had been losing time and feeling out of touch with our body, and that was making SOLO confused, so we got help. We were also arguing a lot, so I thought it would be a good idea to get help with that. I’m the one who showed up to our appointment that one day, I thought SOLO was going to stop going. I like this community, even though I don’t say much I hope to continue to lurk around. Nice to meet you.

Lilly: Hello, I’m Lilly. But before we get to me, it would make sense to formally introduce SOLO. SOLO is the executive of our system. He’s fairly one dimensional, his role being that of a barrier between the outside and the inside world. He works as a filter of sorts, controlling what comes in and what goes out; in a way too, he protects us. In that role, he himself is fairly emotionally flat, unreactive, &c. He was diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder 11 years ago, and more recently with Schizoaffective Disorder and OCD. As the person in control most of the time, the emergence of us others had left him anxious and confused. Things are clearing up now that we’re a bit more co-conscious and are in therapy two times a week. There is a lot more to be said about SOLO et al., but as these are introductions we’ll try to keep it short.

So as I said, I’m Lilly. Where SOLO is the executive of our system, in some ways I am a sort of secretary. He calls me the “record keeper,” but it's a bit more than that. I'm a people watcher, an observer. I keep track of what's going on inside with the other's here, but also the outside world. I've an interest in psychology, sociology, economics, &c; I like knowing how people work, how they interact with others, why they do what they do. That's what I spend most of my time on, just sitting back and watching things unfold. I relay some of my insight to SOLO when appropriate; otherwise I tend to just make a mental note of it and keep it to myself.

Leo: I’m Leo, I’m 8 years old. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say.

Wayne: Wayne here. I’m the most socially apt of the lot of us and therefore I handle a great deal of the more formal social interactions, where silence isn’t much of an option. I’m fairly good at giving presentations, interviews, negotiation, debate, and politics to a lesser extent, stuff like that.

Little G: I’m 14 years old. I like video games, and cartoons. I also like some other stuff that SOLO won’t let me talk about, cause it could get us into trouble; whatever.

Tilt: What a waste of time. Who I am or what role I play isn’t important.

Welcome everyone to the forum! Gad to have all of you here. Yes that means you too Tilt! Everyone that comes to this forum matters! We all what to hear what you have to say.

Welcome to the forum, from me and everyone Inside! See you around!

Welcome all of you to the forum from all of us in here ^^

Hello to all of you. It's nice to hear from you all.

I've noticed y'all lurking (mods can see everyone who is here) so it's good to finally hear a bit about you all. I hope you find it helpful here and feel free to comment on other people's threads also if you'd like to.

Sunflower: Oh, that’s weird that you can see us (>_<)

Thanks for the welcome everyone. Tilt said that everyone would ignore us, I’m glad some people said hello I’m still shy around new people, but maybe some of us will post some time.

We understand about being shy. We've posted a little but still tend to lurk more than anything. Just know from a newbie that everyone is really nice here ^^

It is hard to feel shy like that. I was shy when I first came here also. But eventually by just saying stuff occasionally and having people talk to me nicely I started to get more confidence to say more. Perhaps the same will start to happen for you as you get more used to being here.

Welcome everybody!

welcome glad to see u came out and let us get to know u guys/ gurls