not me Trigger Warning

tribeofone wrote:Hi riddle,

as was already said, BPD and DID often look alike, at least from the outside. I self-diagnosed as BPD before I was ready to accept the possibility of DID, since like you I found DID sounded just a bit too outlandish to be true. I did have to admit however that I just don't fit the bill for BPD for various reasons - I'm not terribly emotional at all, I never self-harmed, I don't have a fear of abandonment and most importantly, I don't 'split' (that is a BPD behaviour where one polarises in relationships, so for example instead of thinking you have some good and some bad traits and so does your partner, you think that you are ONLY good and your partner is ONLY bad and vice versa).

Good information. Sometimes the good/bad view of the patient reverses every once in a while, so that they switch between blaming themselves and blaming their partner. Also, many people with BPD can become sociopaths. My mother for example is a borderline personality sociopath, and so is the acquaintance I mentioned. If Tibeofone's description sounds unlike you, you might not be likely to have BPD.

Personally, I now think of BPD as a kind of DID that just contains more 'immature' parts within its system - so basically a DID person with maybe one adult part and the rest children. But that's just me and I'm not a professional either.

Another important difference is that people with BPD only have one ANP, apparently normal personality. This is huge, as with DID "multiples" on the other hand, there is always more than one apparently normal personality part. All of the other parts in BPD or other secondary structural disorders are emotional personality parts.

So, if the person has one adult part that's the ANP, and multiple children parts who are EPs, this is definitely not DID, where more than one ANP is required. That would be either BPD, dissociative disorder not otherwise specified, or a different secondary structural disorder. The difference between having one ANP and split ANPs is huge and important diagnostically.

Another important difference is that people with BPD only have one ANP, apparently normal personality. This is huge, as with DID "multiples" on the other hand, there is always more than one apparently normal personality part. All of the other parts in BPD or other secondary structural disorders are emotional personality parts.

I think we mean the same thing, I just personally don't like the ANP/EP terminology. I mean, what kind of clinical category is "normal" supposed to be?

I prefer to think of mature vs. immature parts - of course adult parts would tend to be more rational and younger parts (especially when they're stuck in trauma) more emotional, just like children. But with us, some of our adults can be very emotional while the kids can definitely be "apparently normal" for, well, kids.

But I don't want to hijack riddle's thread for categorical hair-splitting

tribeofone wrote:

Another important difference is that people with BPD only have one ANP, apparently normal personality. This is huge, as with DID "multiples" on the other hand, there is always more than one apparently normal personality part. All of the other parts in BPD or other secondary structural disorders are emotional personality parts.

I think we mean the same thing, I just personally don't like the ANP/EP terminology. I mean, what kind of clinical category is "normal" supposed to be?

I prefer to think of mature vs. immature parts - of course adult parts would tend to be more rational and younger parts (especially when they're stuck in trauma) more emotional, just like children. But with us, some of our adults can be very emotional while the kids can definitely be "apparently normal" for, well, kids.

But I don't want to hijack riddle's thread for categorical hair-splitting

That is an accurate way of thinking. The apparently normal personality does consist of mature or partially matured parts. Likewise, the emotional personality does consist of immature parts. However I've noticed that almost everyone on this forum is under the misconception that ANP and EP refers to their individual alters.

The ANP is the apparently normal personality, it doesn't refer to a category of "normal" person--it's relative to the patient's OWN personality, which experiences normal life, not traumatic experience. Ergo, being in a state of emotional upheaval due to TRAUMA is not apparently normal; this personality is the EP. The splits in these two personalities consist of that person's parts or alters. This is how the dissociative personality is structured, it's not just what they like to call it.

It's only accurate to call it the mature personality and the immature personality if one retains understanding of the structure. Both are accurate. However the parts of the emotional personality are not necessarily children, and the parts of the ANP are not necessarily adults either.

thank you Cassandra for the links
it's probably a good idea, with the list and the symptoms, but knowing myself, and my strong denial, i can deny absolutely anything, and then i often also forget.
i was going to say something....but i forgot what :S doesn't take much before my brain shuts down. kinda amazing i'm able to function in my job. or function at all...

-- Thu Feb 14, 2013 4:06 pm --

Quantum/tribeofone:

constant thought conflictions – often feels like a war inside my head.
when i'm having a conversation with my girlfriend she's confused
because it's like talking with someone who has 2 complete different opinions, suddenly i can argue againt my own opinion. and then my mind goes blank.

i easily fall out of conversations, it takes a lot of effort to try and focus on them, i zone out all the time.
i've previously been diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder, bipolar, anxiety, depression and social anxiety, probably something else too. my memory is poor.
i used to have long conversations with someone and not remember it the next day. i screamed at my best friend, without having any knowledge of it, my girlfriend says my mood in Dec last year was the worst she had ever seen me, while i thought i had been really calm because of my emotionless state and feelings of apathy.(I was surprised to hear her tell a different story)
We almost bid on a house which was supposedly my dream house...my girlfriend said she had to talk me out of it. i can't remember this...i think the house is really spooky, can’t believe I said it was my dream house.
my girlfriend said i have so many walls around me it's impossible for anyone to reach me, she thinks i have all these issues because i don't even know who i am because of these walls. one time she managed to break through...using my past pets to enter..i told her a story about when i was a kid...and after I told her she later told me i suddenly looked distantand , blinked alot, and then i couldn't remember what we were talking about. i have no idea what i told her, and i don't want to know either.
i am moody, i can yell at her for anything, and then be perfectly happy 3 mins later.i rarely remember any of our arguments, which frustrates me, because she remembers everything and tries to make me explain my statements.
i nearly quit my job 2 weeks ago, i talked to my boss and told him i wanted to quit and in the same conversation i said i wanted to stay...so we both left confused.
i feel that my body is just some kind of shell, with voices that often controls me and "i" end up with the mess of the decisions that has been made etc.
i used to have a huge alcohol problem, i don't drink anymore because of a obsessive compulsion thought i have stuck in my mind. i could drink from breakfast until late at night, days at end for years.
i cut, but since my emotions are gone, i can't feel any physical pain either....feeling like a wreck i'm debating "mild" drugs, like marihuana. btw...does anyone know if one can experience repressed memories on marihuana? i've had some strange memories, when i tried marihuana years ago.
i also had issues as a kid, started hallucinating before i was 4 years old, I had problems with bedwetting and soiling, .... ocd, some self harming, restlessness, excessive worrying, alot of fear(can't remember from what) I couldn’t sleep at night unless I had cotton in my hand which I would rub in my hand(some of this I’ve been told, some of it I remember)
i feel that when i look at myself in the mirror, there is someone else under my skin observing me, maybe an alien…because it is scary…i often get goose bumps when i look at myself…i'm scared i will suddenly become something/someone else, or see the true me or something…this also happened when i was a kid…looking at me, doesn’t feel like me.
it sometimes feels like i'm going to wake up soon….that this is just a dream
i had a tendency to just up and leave during play as a kid, it was like i suddenly stopped existing and just left, thinking i was invisible or something? felt like a "trance" state. my friend became aware of this and stopped me from leaving when this happened…i remember one time i though that it was weird that she SAW me.
i’ve had problems with nightmares since as long as i can remember too.
all my symptoms got worse after i cut myself in Dec, the horrible sadness that overwhelmed me, and telling myself I had to get away, when suddenly i felt fine….but i’ve had no emotions since.
i also feel like a little kid a lot of the time, i think like one too my gf says, i’m also very impulsive i guess.
my friend even told me about an incident years ago when she told me i had told her i came to myself with blood on myself….i had cuts, but had no memory of doing it….i have no memory of the episode or of telling her this.
i overdosed on pills and had to go to the hospital about 7 years ago.
i've always thought i had a pretty good control of things..my girlfriend says i'm crazy about having control over myself and things in general…
maybe i've lost control and now everything is surfacing? i don't know.
i've experiences "trance"states…can't remember if this happened in the past….i rarely remember things from the past.
a bit of brief information of what's (been)going on in my world….and now i suddenly feel like im talking about someone else.
too strange…feels like im somewhere else too…

I'm no pro, but everything you posted right in this post alone makes me think "DID" immediately, if not at least DDNOS-1. The memory issues, the feeling like you're not there, the ability to deny just about anything, feeling like there's a war inside your head, feeling like you don't have feelings, having confusing or contradicting conversations, the issues when you were a kid, the hallucinations, etc., etc., ALL of this, all of what you wrote, is just sign after sign for DDNOS-1/DID, at the very least for some dissociative disorder in general.

(As for the marijuana thing, everyone's different, but for us, it makes everything concerning DID easier. Communication, memory "sharing" between alters, switching, co-consciousness, co-hosting, etc. It also helps with our PTSD, our anxiety, our depression, Cassandra's bipolar mood swings, L.C. and Luna's anorexia, and others' insomnia and paranoia. It could help you retrieve memories, but it also might not. Just as long as you're aware it's not for everyone and try it only because you want to, and are in a comfortable/safe place when you try it (not that it's dangerous, but everyone reacts differently, and it's always better in general anyway to be safe/comfortable)).


I would definitely trust your therapist, and work on accepting that you're most likely being pointed in the right direction with suspecting you to have DDNOS-1/DID. (I know it can be hard, but that's why Cassandra suggested making the list. It doesn't make it easy to fight the doubt/denial, but having a list of reasons and examples of symptoms/"proof" to reread whenever you need to certainly helps, and it can at least make you accept that DDNOS-1/DID is still at least a possibility).


Best of luck to you.


-KAT

I'm no pro, but everything you posted right in this post alone makes me think "DID" immediately, if not at least DDNOS-1

I would second that. I cannot see anything in there that makes me think "not DID" either.
Sometimes things can be confusing because it is possible for parts/alters in DID to have their own mental health issues, like depression, anxiety and even personality disorders (we've been diagnosed with a host of things as well). But so far no therapy for any of these issues has helped us much, until we started to realise that what is needed is internal team-work.

As for "everything surfacing", this happened for us, too. It started about a year ago, when we were in a similar place of understanding as you are now (i.e. mostly confused) and now, a year later, we're at a point where we have accepted that we have DID - so if this really is what you have, it can be a lenghty journey of discovery and you may feel that on some level you accept the possibility while on another you find it ridiculous many times along the way. But if it is true, then the fact that it is surfacing at the very least means that your mind feels in a safe enough place now to let it surface, so despite the fact you may feel like you're getting worse, actually you're getting better.

As for the Marihuana thing, it is certainly possible, but we would not recommend it, for the simple reason that unless you fully trust yourself it is very easy to dismiss memories that come up because "it was just the drugs". This does not go for everybody of course, but we had this phase 10 years ago when we were digging for memories, only to decide it was all crap because we found them on drugs. Not saying you shouldn't enjoy a spliff, but trying to "crowbar open" repressed memory is usually a bad idea under any circumstances - there is after all a good reason they are repressed and if they are there, they will eventually come up when you are strong enough to deal with them.

Have you ever tried to talk with the voices you are hearing? Maybe you could just try to gently strike up a conversation, ask them who they are and why they are talking to you. they might be as confused as you are, but perhaps you could make more sense of it all together.

riddle wrote:constant thought conflictions – often feels like a war inside my head.
when i'm having a conversation with my girlfriend she's confused
because it's like talking with someone who has 2 complete different opinions, suddenly i can argue againt my own opinion. and then my mind goes blank.

i easily fall out of conversations, it takes a lot of effort to try and focus on them, i zone out all the time.
i've previously been diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder, bipolar, anxiety, depression and social anxiety, probably something else too. my memory is poor.
i used to have long conversations with someone and not remember it the next day. i screamed at my best friend, without having any knowledge of it, my girlfriend says my mood in Dec last year was the worst she had ever seen me, while i thought i had been really calm because of my emotionless state and feelings of apathy.(I was surprised to hear her tell a different story)
We almost bid on a house which was supposedly my dream house...my girlfriend said she had to talk me out of it. i can't remember this...i think the house is really spooky, can’t believe I said it was my dream house.
my girlfriend said i have so many walls around me it's impossible for anyone to reach me, she thinks i have all these issues because i don't even know who i am because of these walls. one time she managed to break through...using my past pets to enter..i told her a story about when i was a kid...and after I told her she later told me i suddenly looked distantand , blinked alot, and then i couldn't remember what we were talking about. i have no idea what i told her, and i don't want to know either.
i am moody, i can yell at her for anything, and then be perfectly happy 3 mins later.i rarely remember any of our arguments, which frustrates me, because she remembers everything and tries to make me explain my statements.
i nearly quit my job 2 weeks ago, i talked to my boss and told him i wanted to quit and in the same conversation i said i wanted to stay...so we both left confused.
i feel that my body is just some kind of shell, with voices that often controls me and "i" end up with the mess of the decisions that has been made etc.
i used to have a huge alcohol problem, i don't drink anymore because of a obsessive compulsion thought i have stuck in my mind. i could drink from breakfast until late at night, days at end for years.
i cut, but since my emotions are gone, i can't feel any physical pain either....feeling like a wreck i'm debating "mild" drugs, like marihuana. btw...does anyone know if one can experience repressed memories on marihuana? i've had some strange memories, when i tried marihuana years ago.
i also had issues as a kid, started hallucinating before i was 4 years old, I had problems with bedwetting and soiling, .... ocd, some self harming, restlessness, excessive worrying, alot of fear(can't remember from what) I couldn’t sleep at night unless I had cotton in my hand which I would rub in my hand(some of this I’ve been told, some of it I remember)
i feel that when i look at myself in the mirror, there is someone else under my skin observing me, maybe an alien…because it is scary…i often get goose bumps when i look at myself…i'm scared i will suddenly become something/someone else, or see the true me or something…this also happened when i was a kid…looking at me, doesn’t feel like me.
it sometimes feels like i'm going to wake up soon….that this is just a dream
i had a tendency to just up and leave during play as a kid, it was like i suddenly stopped existing and just left, thinking i was invisible or something? felt like a "trance" state. my friend became aware of this and stopped me from leaving when this happened…i remember one time i though that it was weird that she SAW me.
i’ve had problems with nightmares since as long as i can remember too.
all my symptoms got worse after i cut myself in Dec, the horrible sadness that overwhelmed me, and telling myself I had to get away, when suddenly i felt fine….but i’ve had no emotions since.
i also feel like a little kid a lot of the time, i think like one too my gf says, i’m also very impulsive i guess.
my friend even told me about an incident years ago when she told me i had told her i came to myself with blood on myself….i had cuts, but had no memory of doing it….i have no memory of the episode or of telling her this.
i overdosed on pills and had to go to the hospital about 7 years ago.
i've always thought i had a pretty good control of things..my girlfriend says i'm crazy about having control over myself and things in general…
maybe i've lost control and now everything is surfacing? i don't know.
i've experiences "trance"states…can't remember if this happened in the past….i rarely remember things from the past.
a bit of brief information of what's (been)going on in my world….and now i suddenly feel like im talking about someone else.
too strange…feels like im somewhere else too…

Can you describe these trance states?
Almost every symptom of this can be explained by schizoaffective disorder, which loosely means being bipolar and schizophrenic simultaneously. For example, bipolar's have memory loss and they are impulsive and can seem very childish. On the other hand, a dissociative disorder makes just as much sense. But the fact is, if you have a dissociative disorder, then it is incredibly severe. I'm going to agree with your therapist that you apparently have a dissociative disorder.

From the way you describe everything that happened to you, and from your lucidity of comprehending your situation, you don't seem to suffer from a psychotic disorder--and you're obviously highly dissociative. The trance states are problem "freezing" and "total submission," which are symptom states that dissociative people experience. Freezing is a state in which you can't really move, your breathing is very deep and you do not experience pain. Submission includes that except you are not aware of what's going on, for the most part, and some further differences--it's a type of anesthesia and amnesia.

What you've been going through is an increasing instability of your personality. Extreme feelings and intense traumatic experience are bubbling up out of your subconscious, and your emotional personality--which may be one or as you've suspected, three parts--is desperately trying to dismantle your boundaries and break through to the surface. That's what is being called "surfacing." It bears a lot of heavy stress on your mind.

Contemplating everything that you've shared, and thinking over the combined symptoms, it seems to me that you have one apparently normal personality. Meaning, there is you, the person trying to function in life and act as though you're experiencing life normally and your feelings and perception are not highly traumatized; and then there are these other, subdued parts of your emotional personality, which has split into separate parts to accommodate a swathe of traumatic and erratic turmoil that is kept behind the barrier of your apparently normal self, which has matured and pushed on despite the traumatization.

That's my hypothesis, not a diagnostic theory. Ergo, it could also be accurate that there is another AN part, one that feels foreign and "alien" to you, but that could just as easily be a very upset emotional part. One of my emotional parts is grown and is quite insane and foreign to me, he doesn't even seem human and is nothing like me or any other apparently normal part at all.

So, for the time being I would suggest--only suggest--to you that you could have advanced PTSD, borderline personality disorder, or dissociative disorder not otherwise specified. In my guess, it's the latter. You seem somewhat unique and experiencing a very intense and rigid type of dissociative What you DO NOT want to end up with is a slightly misguided diagnosis. Dissociative disorders are very similar, but the structure and symptoms that differ them from each other are very important in regards to self-understanding, coping, and healing.

Not trying to argue here, as I think self-diagnosing should be avoided, and the mind should be kept open to all possibilities until something is known for sure or someone is provided with an official (and credible) diagnosis, but I think you should trust your therapist on this one. They sound like they knew the signs to look for, they seem like they've taken the time to compare your symptoms/experiences to the signs/symptoms of DID, and they made a point to say that they think you probably have DID instead of just jumping to conclusions because DID seems to "fit" you. Yes, many dissociative disorders seem similar at first and share common symptoms, but your therapist suggested that you have DID out of all of the other possibilities, and I think that's not something that should be overlooked or disregarded.

-KAT

tomboy24 wrote:Not trying to argue here, as I think self-diagnosing should be avoided, and the mind should be kept open to all possibilities until something is known for sure or someone is provided with an official (and credible) diagnosis, but I think you should trust your therapist on this one. They sound like they knew the signs to look for, they seem like they've taken the time to compare your symptoms/experiences to the signs/symptoms of DID, and they made a point to say that they think you probably have DID instead of just jumping to conclusions because DID seems to "fit" you. Yes, many dissociative disorders seem similar at first and share common symptoms, but your therapist suggested that you have DID out of all of the other possibilities, and I think that's not something that should be overlooked or disregarded.

-KAT

He did not say his therapist suggested DID. He said his therapist suggested that his personality had other parts. Then he asked if there were any other disorders that would include other parts, besides DID, which there are several... I was informing him with respect to what he said his therapist told him.

My mistake then, and I apologize. However, parts/alters tend to be viewed differently from ego states and other "parts" in other disorders. In my experience, usually when one says "part" or "alter", it means they are suspecting DID or a similar disorder. If they're suspecting other disorders, in my experience, they normally say "ego states" or simply "states", or something to that effect. I'm not saying Riddle should close their mind to other possibilities, but they also shouldn't close their mind the the possibility of DID.

(Also, the fact that you made a comment to not let anyone give Riddle a diagnosis right after Cassandra posted, and then turned around and basically started giving diagnoses yourself only with "disclaimer" words thrown around I must admit slightly irked me. I am not trying to start anything, nor do I have much care or put much importance towards the matter, I merely wished to express that to you is all).

-KAT