Insecurity-Confusion (May Triggar)

I am new to this forum so please excuse (and inform) me if I make a mistake.

My entire life i've struggled with the accusation of 'lieing' 'pretending' or being told that the consistant and horrific abuse I was experiancing were just delusions and hallucinations. I've consistantly experianced every form (most frequent being sexual and psychological) of abuse from 3/12 years-19 years old. I believed others when i was told they were hallucinations. It wasn't until i went to a therapist worried that I had schizophrenia (like I'd often been told) that I was diagnosed with DID and PTSD.

I explained this to try to gently give context to the extreme insecurity and terror I feel whenever discussing my illness or talking to someone trying to help me. No one knows I feel it because The Other Woman is in charge, and she recognizes my feelings but doesn't show others. They think we're normally reacting and in that way she keeps me safe.

I'm always afraid--we all are--because we've been told/coerced our entire lives to have symptoms of schizophrenia that we don't have. Now that we're able to show our true symptoms and start to talk about things we're all constantly terrified that one mis-step will make someone not believe us or say we are delusional, and we could end up back where we were. My therapist at the residential facility worked it out with me, and she determined that the abuse was real and not hallucinations or delusions. But other people have to work with me for a while to figure that out (unless they get er notes) because the nature of my abuse was abnormal and unique.

I was wondering if other people have ever faced that terror and stress when describing symptoms that sometimes they forget them or can't remember if the symptoms are real or not? And do you ever get confused between the parts, and end up listing things that are inacurate? Do you ever have problems with memory as in: taking a phsych eval and answering no, but later realizing that the answer was yes? and then being too afraid to go back and tell them because you're afraid they think you're lieing? Websites say that other people with DID were commonly accused of pretending, and I wanted to know if this is true or if i'm really alone.

We will believe your experiences because most of them will resonate for someone here. If you go back and read a few "newbie" posts, you'll find concerns very similar to yours. I don't say that to minimize your experience but to let you know you're not alone. It's one of the most consistent features of DID, also one of the most annoying and sometimes heartbreaking, that you get confused and doubt your symptoms.

I've known for sure I have DID for almost exactly a year now. It was also diagnosed a psychiatrist. I doubted like crazy a year ago and it's much less frequent now. Most moments of any particular day I believe to the depth of my being that I have DID. However, I still find myself: doubting it's real, wondering if I'm making it up, feeling sure I'm making it up, feeling like I'm being manipulative or lying. Sometimes I find myself coming to the absurd conclusion that the abuse happened but everything else has been made up, including my alters. At other times, I'm certain momentarily that nothing bad happened, and I don't have DID at all, but there are definitely other people who live inside me. Other times I can barely remember any details that I know I recall at other times.

I say or post things all the time, then afterwards think, was I being genuine? Was I manipulative in any way and was it all the complete truth? When you face extensive child abuse from caregivers, part of you needs to believe it wasn't real in order to get through the rest of the day. Many abusers are highly motivated to keep a child questioning what they know or even totally denying it, because if there's a slip, if the truth gets out, they can swiftly end up in prison, reputation ruined, no matter what their relationship to the child.