ANPs, EPs, DID and tertiary dissociation

sev0n wrote:You are doing some great thinking here! Just one note - there is no such thing as a core. There is no original to get back to. You are a sum of all your parts - both ANP and EP. Keep up the good work!

Thanks

Yeah, I should put a disclaimer with that It's just a name.. in a confused moment Mara once asked what she should call him and whether he was "the Core" and he just laughed and said no, but you can call me that. So the name kind of stuck.

oaktree wrote:I have to go to a real person, who may see who I am, people may see which book I have etc. I know I shouldn't be afraid of it, but that doesn't make the fear go away.

Hm. That sounds more like shame, not fear. Try some Byron Katie type inquiry on that thought.

"I fear the university library because the checkout person will (1) bother to read the book title and (2) know what the book is about and (3) think I have DID and (4) think something negative about me and (5) do or say something to me."

Are any of those thoughts true? Can you find "turnaround" thoughts that are as true or truer?

I borrow a lot of books about DID, great piles of them in fact, and I have had thought #3 quite often. So here are some of my turnarounds.

The checkout person will think:
* Nothing of it
* I am writing a novel
* I am writing a textbook
* I am writing a research paper
* I love someone else who has DID
* I am borrowing books for someone else who is writing about DID or has a loved one with DID

In my case, all of these turnaround thoughts are at least as likely if not more likely to be true than the thought that I have DID. What is actually true doesn't matter, because all the checkout person knows is the fact that I check out a lot of books, many of them about DID. The rest is just random thoughts about that fact.

Thanks Cassie
That is extremely helpful, very reassuring info/advice.

Memory is a sore subject in here.
I (Mara) am terrified of memory loss, and worried that this tendency to obsess about every little lost detail leads me to overstate our lapses. There are some. Though in retrospect they seem insignificant and directly related to camouflaging the System.

I guess I can neither exclude nor confirm lost time unless some external evidence crops up Meanwhile I'll just assume we're probably not DID and be thankful that we are welcome here nonetheless

I guess I just have to let it go and work with what I know: I am a few.

Teatime wrote:

sev0n wrote:You are doing some great thinking here! Just one note - there is no such thing as a core. There is no original to get back to. You are a sum of all your parts - both ANP and EP. Keep up the good work!

Thanks

Yeah, I should put a disclaimer with that It's just a name.. in a confused moment Mara once asked what she should call him and whether he was "the Core" and he just laughed and said no, but you can call me that. So the name kind of stuck.

Oh.. that's cute.

Really great info & super helpful-

A few questions - what's this sound like (DID or DDNOS-1)? or neither?

Only one ANP in any given time period - but more than one over time.
I clearly had a different ANP as a child from ages 7-12 than I have now but only one that I know of in operation at any given time...

No time loss currently due to co-consciousness but many gaps in the past, childhood is a blur, years & months are missing etc...

My only clue that an alter had time loss came a few weeks ago and the alter did not recognize what had happened since she had last been out, i.e. thought one week had passed instead of four but I was co-conscious and was able to correct the confusion.

In general, my alters are not well-developed and seem flat. Either that or I don't fully know and understand them. One ANP (me), a little (EP holding emotional wounding), a tough girl (EP), and observer, a church-girl (EP/ANP?), an anti-church girl (EP holding spiritual trauma), Other EP (holding SA trauma), and a protector (EP) - I have several other fragments specific to specific events...

I don't have names for the alters or parts and I have no inner world.

@Teatime: you're welcome!



@Journalgirl: it's tough to tell, actually. you could have a very co-conscious system with no time loss as the host, but others may have time loss. and actually, blurry memories could actually be time loss that you don't realize, because over time, we've come to realize that most of our unclear or blurry memories are that way because we weren't the ones out, but they were memories stored in the general memory storage to help keep up the appearance of normality for the most part, so that there wouldn't be a worrying black out gap in the memory or something.
DID's criteria is that the system needs to have at least 2 ANP's, and two alters/parts need to experience time loss, but it doesn't have to be the host, and it's not always time loss that's known about or noticed at first.
DDNOS-1's criteria is that the system only has 1 ANP, and the other alters/parts are all EP's (but this doesn't mean they can't have ANP traits/tendencies). And there is no time loss.

so, at this point, you might have to wait for time and increasement of knowledge/awareness before it becomes more clear as to whether or not this is DID or DDNOS-1, because both seem equally possible to me, based on the criteria and what i know from our system's research and such.


- cassie (age ?)

Una+ wrote:Byron Katie type inquiry

Just looked it up. Well, my positive-thinking self-help alarm went off immediately (I've had a bad experience with the "seven habits", which is AFAIK an otherwise well-respected book). But that aside...

Well maybe it's shame. Technically, I know fear and shame are different things, but when I try to imagine the difference, I just can't. What is that difference actually? (Think this is the reason I mix those up, because I don't really know the difference).

Una+ wrote:The checkout person will think:

I would have to make my own list. None of it (except the first one) could really apply to me. Probably in general, but not personally.

And then there's also the idea that it'll be logged somewhere. It will be written down somewhere (in a computer, likely). So, it's not only that moment, but also later on. That idea is kind of scary (or shameful...) to me.

about memory loss:
I, myself (as a part of the system) have two instances of possible time loss (which could just as likely be technical failures). And I suspect there are other instances that are just hidden (I don't know, but the time seems to go really fast lately, for some reason).
Once, I saw a switch happening (with me all the time in the background observing) right in a conversation and the new part was kinda confused what it was about. I guess that counts as time loss. Well, I think it was a switch, that is. It was right in front of my mom, and she didn't really notice anything (aside, wtheck, *I* am writing this, right?)

oaktree wrote:

Una wrote:The checkout person will think:

I would have to make my own list. None of it (except the first one) could really apply to me. Probably in general, but not personally.

The point of the exercise is that it isn't about you. What other people think is about them. If you were the checkout person at a library and someone checked out a book about DID would you think that person has DID? Would you know that thought was true? Could you absolutely know that thought was true?

Re shame vs fear, try Wikipedia:

Wikipedia: Shame
Wikipedia: Fear

Ow, I feel really dumb. First, for not looking it up, then, for needing to look it up
I still don't get it, honestly. Think this is part of me not having much feelings at all (or rather, have hidden them somehow). It seems I cannot imagine an emotion (hence the confusion).

Una+ wrote:The point of the exercise is that it isn't about you. What other people think is about them.

I'll have to think about this one. Maybe I'll post later more about it.

This thread is quite interesting and overall neutral, which is great. The presentation of the theory of structural dissociation in The Haunted Self is fascinating and has led me to many insights about my alters and me and how and why they came about. Determining which is ANP and which EP has been less successful for us but some seem identifiable. For those of you lurking or new to the board, don't be concerned if this doesn't make sense or if you can't figure out which alter is what type. It's a theory, it's not that simple, and it may or may not be productive for you to look at your system this way, certainly in the early stages of suspicion or acceptance that you have DID. The theory is way beyond the ANP/EP distinction, of course, which comments here indicate.

I've worked a library circulation desk before and I can tell you that Una is correct. Of all the possible thoughts a university library desk worker might have about someone with a handful of books on DID, the most common, if it even registers, is likely to be "psychology course." The least likely is going to be "this person has DID." For comparison, when someone takes out a bunch of books on racism, the last thought will be "this person is a racist."

I'll add two more observations. First, a person working any library circulation desk, public or academic, sees several hundred patrons each week: observations are fleeting and quickly forgotten. Second, people who work in libraries are decidedly more insecure and non-judgmental than those in most careers. You're safe with them.