How do you know if you have DID?

How do you know, did you know fairly quickly or was it a gradual realisation?

How did you find out, did you accept it easily or did you fight it?

Was it someone else who brought it to your attention, or were you aware of it before?

What age did it develop in retrospect, what age were you when you realised?

How aware are you of your alters, I know some of you have clearly aged, named, gendered alters, do any of you not know at all but are just aware of different parts of you.

How do you find out you have the alters and their identities, do you help them find an identity or do they have it defined by the time you've met them?

If you could sum what DID is to you in 1 sentence what would it be?

Edited to add: Does your head feel too crowded sometimes, do your alters fight for space?

Thank you

AJ
xx

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How do you know, did you know fairly quickly or was it a gradual realisation?

Both. I read about DID in psychology class, went "Omg! There's stuff to describe and explain what I experience!" And then it took time to gradually realize that yes, I was indeed correct and yes, I do indeed have DID.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How did you find out, did you accept it easily or did you fight it?

I thought I accepted it easily, but doubt/denial can be hard. It's often a subconscious defensive mechanism that kicks in to attempt to re-hide the DID. The whole point of a DID system is to help the host/main one "out" seem and act as "normal" and "ok" as possible. If the DID is obvious, known about, learned about, etc., that's not helping the person to seem as "normal" and "ok" as possible.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:Was it someone else who brought it to your attention, or were you aware of it before?

I've always heard Kat's voice. She started out as an imaginary friend/big sister that just never really went away. Then in middle school, I heard voices, but thought it was normal until I asked my friends if they heard voices and then I thought it was just me being different/weird. I also thought the voices were just like, consciences. I used to call Kat my "shoulder devil" and Rain my "shoulder angel". Then I started to realize the voices could influence me, my actions, what I said, etc., so I started calling them "sides of me". Like for Kat, I'd warn people, "I have a dark side I hope you never see". The I finally read about DID in psychology class in high school and everything made sense and I realized that they were alters.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:What age did it develop in retrospect, what age were you when you realised?

DID develops during childhood, at different points for different people. I have no idea when mine started, but if the age of alters is any clue (sometimes it is, sometimes it's not), then possibly around 2 years old as that's my youngest alter. I was 12 when I really became aware of voices, and then I was 14-15 when I started calling them "sides", and then I was 16 when I learned about DID and began to view them as alters.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How aware are you of your alters, I know some of you have clearly aged, named, gendered alters, do any of you not know at all but are just aware of different parts of you.

It varies from person to person. I thought I was aware of all my alters, then I jumped from being aware of 5 to being aware of 20+ alters in the span of like, 2 years. (Alters aren't really new to existence when you "discover" them, they're only new to conscious awareness and knowledge). I have a feeling I'm close to "the end" for discovering alters, but then again, that's what I thought when I hit 5, and then 13, and then 19, and now I'm up to 20+, so I guess time will tell if I have more or if I'm "done".

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How do you find out you have the alters and their identities, do you help them find an identity or do they have it defined by the time you've met them?

Um, in what sense do you mean? All alters have some sort of identity, that's how they're developed as alters. They might not know their name, age, gender, etc., but they at least know a "purpose" or a "role" they play, or they know what they like/don't like, or they know what they've been taught, or something like that. They at least have some vague idea about their own identity. But most of mine came to me with names already picked out, ages already known and everything like that (I think that's mainly because most of my alters I came to realize were often characters I thought I'd created write about in short stories and fanfictions I'd write and such).

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:If you could sum what DID is to you in 1 sentence what would it be?

DID is both a blessing and a curse at times.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:Edited to add: Does your head feel too crowded sometimes, do your alters fight for space?

Thank you

AJ
xx

Yes, it feels crowded most of the time, actually. They don't fight for space, though, unless they're fighting for space "up front" so that they can be in control of the body or say something when there's more than one that wants to be "out".

I'm not sure if you're asking these questions just out of curiosity, or if you're wondering about yourself in regards to DID, but either way, here's some related threads that might be interesting/helpful:

- How did you know you had DID?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101325.html

- What was it like when you first realized?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic99442.html

- Your experience in uncovering alters- time line (possibly triggering): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic94601.html

- Looking for perspective (possibly triggering): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic98598.html

- Trying to figure out if I have this or some other issue (possibly triggering): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic99016.html

- A question about alter "creation" (possibly triggering):http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic100271.html

- System structure-- not DID?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101109.html

- I, the host, a part just like the others? (Possibly slightly triggering): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101732.html

- What makes me the host? (Possibly slightly triggering): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101850.html

- ANPs, EPs, DID and teritiary dissociation (discusses DID terminology, alter roles): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic102340.html

- Any tips/ideas on how to recognize when I'm losing time?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101242.html


-Cassandra

Thank you. I've done a lot of reading and still have more to do. I definitely do not want to self-diagnose, but I am wondering if this relates to me. There is lots of little things that seem to ring true, but due to the lack of specificness of some, I can't be sure. Plus I don't want to have DID, when I first read about it, it terrified me, it still does, but I don't want to hurt anyone, even me so I don't want to be completely dismissive, but then I turn round and be so anyway.

Something I didn't think was a trauma may be and so might something else, another thing I'm sure isn't but none of those come close to bothering me like the main lot. Hopefully that's so vague you'll barely understand it let alone get triggered.

I have had big gaps in my memory that are have at least in a basic way been filled in by some flashbacks, I can assess a few days out of a few months and some of that is hazy. I've had memory problems for a long time, just little things like parts of conversations, or what I did yesterday, sometimes I manage to remember and other times I don't. I just recently by journalling (a request of my social worker), I became aware of an inner and outer me (I'm 23). A long while back, I had at least one significant blackout before that ended in a scenario that I now know relates to my past but didn't at the time.

This sense that there was this "face me" and my "head me" concerned me, but I thought it might be to do with PTSD. I realised that the head me was the real me and that's when it bothered me more. I started to unravel, I couldn't access the real me even if I wanted. I was forcibly stopped/prevented from crying when I needed to. Part of me refused to tell my mum what was happening when I saw she wasn't able to deal with it. The "noise" in my head kept getting louder, indistinct and unrecognisable but distressing. Until from somewhere something new came my head screamed at me and told me to shut up, my head went silent (for a while), it scared me so much. I drew all this stuff on paper and whilst I remember starting writing, I don't really remember doing the drawing. The last few days have been really bad and I've been getting incredibly scared and confused, completely out of control. And this awareness has just been getting stronger (louder) and stronger.

I have read some things here and on the first day I read stuff I thought it was ridiculous, and I felt for you but I definitely didn't have it (Please take no offense to that, it wasn't meant to cause offense). Then I read that loads of people didn't even believe it existed. So I was relieved but it kept persisting, I related a bit more but didn't want to accept anything. I read Blank's thread and kind of broke down as a part of me massively, massively related to it (thank you, because whether I have anything or not, it really helped me). I've read a lot in the last week and have become marginally more aware of what's going on in my head, but I still don't know and I'm very skeptical. I seem to have had escape fantasy stuff in my head for years now, where I'd picture an ideal situation, one character in that was physically invincible and never let herself be let down, she'd always get away from anyone before they became a liability. Before that I was just me, but mentally healthy and someone was always protecting me and making me feel safe.

The last few days I felt so out of control I made a fantasy with me in, the real broken me, hoping that the imaginary world would make me feel a little safer and then the real broken me just sat and I dissociated in my day-dream. I did it again today (a few hours ago) When I came back (in the day-dream) I was this little girl and told the other people in the day-dream a lot about herself, and about all these others, it was like they were in my head when it was happening, to be honest I don't really remember that well, just the daydream aspect. When I came out of the day dream, it was not just opening my eyes, it was like waking up peacefully but I'd already been awake, it was very surreal. I kept my mind open and didn't be harsh and felt this happiness at the back of my head near my head me but different.

I do adjust to different situations and adapt, sometimes I surprise myself and things happen, often even though I remember somethings there are things I don't or I remember them differently (or with gaps) to how others do.

I don't want to create a DID diagnosis in my head and any advice given here will not be 100% accepted without a professional diagnosis, I can see the psychiatrist again and I have a therapy assessment on Tuesday (but don't know if I'll have to then go on a waiting list). I'm also aware that I've read some bits on here and about DID in general and that I don't want to have created it, or be some how faking it. I know some parts I've had for a long time, others a suspicion of for at least a while, but I don't want to suddenly have adopted this because of what I've been reading and some hysteria on my part. I still don't want it but I just don't want to hurt anyone if they do exist.

If it is just an additional edge to me that makes sense, but it doesn't (didn't, I don't know) if it's more than that. How do I differ from what's real and what's not.

I'm so sorry that was so long.

What I was able to read from your post (I'm fuzzy right now), you're definitely showing signs of possible DID, or at least some dissociative disorder, in the extreme least complex PTSD.

DID is nothing to be scared of. You can heal from it, there is therapy/treatment for it, it is merely a coping mechanism condition meant to help you cope/function/survive, and while yes, it can seem scary, or shocking, or "weird", it's really not once you get used to the idea and learn/understand more about it in general, including how it "works", how it develops, etc.

DID is commonly misdiagnosed for schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, psychosis, and bipolar disorder, so be careful about getting a diagnosis. Make sure you go to someone who's at least familiar with dissociative disorders, if not DID specifically, so they're not dismissing symptoms just because they're skeptical or because they don't know what to look for or something.

DID is a very personal disorder, meaning there will be many, many variations and everyone's DID is slightly different from everyone else's. All systems are different, all alters are different, all symptoms can be different, etc. So don't worry if you don't seem to "match" or "fit" everything, and don't let that be the deciding factor in cutting out the possibility of DID.

Trauma is whatever could be considered traumatic to a child (since DID begins to develop in childhood, while the personality developmental processes are happening). This means anything from abuse to bullying, to feeling abandoned if your parents left you alone too long, to being under extreme stress, to witnessing things like your parents fighting or a bad accident or a crime, etc. Many people try to say "I can't have DID, I had no trauma in my life". You might not have had abuse in your life, but abuse isn't the only trauma out there. Many people don't realize that what's traumatic to a child isn't always traumatic, nor seems traumatic, to older ages like adults. Just because something doesn't seem "that bad" now doesn't mean it wasn't "that bad" to you as a child. If you leave a child home alone, they're going to be lonely, scared, probably worry that they've been abandoned, etc. If you leave an older adolescent home alone, they're going to relish the freedom, they might finally feel trusted, and they're most likely not going to have any problems whatsoever.

PTSD usually doesn't involved parts/alters, and it doesn't involve voices (except for voices within the flashbacks), only flashbacks and traumatic memories that were not properly processed nor healed from.

DID is meant to be hidden, keep that in mind. The whole point of a DID system is to help the host/main one "out" cope and function while seeming/acting as "normal" and "ok" as possible. If the DID is obvious, if alters draw attention to themselves, if the DID/alters are learned about or known about, that's not exactly helping the person to seem as "normal" or "ok" as possible. So alters tend to hide, and they try to keep the DID symptoms from being detected/noticed on a conscious level. This is also where doubt/denial tends to kick in. Doubt/denial is often a subconscious defensive mechanism meant to try and "help" the person go back to seeming/acting as "normal" and "ok" as possible by trying to re-hide the DID/alters through, well, denial and doubt. But denial/doubt will not help you, it will not help your life get better, and it will not help you to heal. It is important to know and recognize doubt/denial for what it is and why it happens and fight it.

The more I read of your post as I'm typing this reply, the more signs and symptoms I'm seeing that scream "very possible DID here". So I think you're on the right track for investigating this further.

Ok, no offense to you or anyone else, but honestly, it's getting so tiring to have seemingly everyone be afraid that they're somehow "creating" DID just from reading about it or learning about it. This DOES NOT happen. It takes a lot of conscious effort to make yourself act like you have DID and act out the symptoms, and even then, it takes even more conscious effort and time to finally reach a point where you can convince yourself of your own act. And everyone here has believed at one point in time that they've been faking it, that's the doubt/denial talking, but if you were faking it, you'd know, because it'd be you doing it and doing everything and you would have NO memory problems and have NO symptoms and nothing would actually affect/effect you. As for not wanting DID, well, if you have alters, it's not like they asked to be developed and I bet at least one of them doesn't want to be around either, so try to understand that as well. It's not like alters are body-snatchers or strangers coming in to ruin your life. They're parts of you, developed to try and help the body survive, cope, and function the best they know how.

Not sure about the additional edge thing, there's not really anything that has that and it doesn't really make sense... As for what's real and what's not, well, your symptoms are real. Your memory issues are real. Any voices you hear in your head are real. Your experiences are real. And if you do have DID/alters, that's real too. So, not sure what you mean by that, although know that everyone with a dissociative disorder has troubles with what's real and what's not, because often times memories don't feel as if they really happened, or they don't feel as if they happened to you, but then again, that's the whole point of a dissociative disorder- to dissociate from reality and make it not feel real.


Here are some threads that might be helpful to you:

-- This thread contains DID resource websites (that I think do a great job at explaining things), along with organized threads from this forum that discuss common questions (including the "is this DID" question), symptoms, discovery experiences, communicating with alters (including how to do so), all about alters, doubt/denial issues, and much more:
- DDNOS/DID Resources: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic100829.html

-- This thread focuses more on the "causes" of DID, DID development, switching/co-consciousness/co-hosting (what they are and symptoms/experiences), and has a couple good threads on communicating/accepting/understanding/working with alters:
- For all who question how they have DID/think their's is odd: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic104081.html

If I were you, I'd look through them and see if you identify with anything, or if symptoms "fit"/"match" what you experience and such, and if you do, then there's a strong possibility that you're on the right track with looking into DID, and you should probably look into DID further.


-Cassandra

Hoo boy, this is going to be a lot of quoting, hm?

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How do you know, did you know fairly quickly or was it a gradual realisation?

Blue started noticing she was losing bit chunks of time, and then her friends would be getting mad at her for things she couldn't remember doing. She'd always heard Mae's voice, but Mae started as what Blue thought was an "imaginary friend" and just never went away. She thought it was normal.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How did you find out, did you accept it easily or did you fight it?

Blue found out when Mae started leaving up webpages on DID for her. Blue never accepted that she could have been abused to the point of splitting, so that she couldn't accept, but it did explain what was happening to her.
We have a part now originally named Denial, but her name is Rebekah. She's trying to taint our perspectives to believe we're just one person with a wild imagination, trying to not take responsibility for our life. Psh.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:Was it someone else who brought it to your attention, or were you aware of it before?

Like I said, Blue was aware of Mae's voice, and then others were pointing out that she'd done things she didn't remember doing. Then, gradually, she started tuning into the voices.. and realized there were more.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:What age did it develop in retrospect, what age were you when you realised?

From when we know the abuse started, for us our DID could have developed around 2 to 4, but Blue didn't know for sure until she was 13. She used to then joke to her friends, "I have nine different personalities." Except no one realized she wasn't joking. :p

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How aware are you of your alters, I know some of you have clearly aged, named, gendered alters, do any of you not know at all but are just aware of different parts of you.

Most of them have come forward to be known at least by name. There are a good handful of them who ONLY have names, but we don't know who they are. We like at least giving everyone "labels" which in itself is a little dishonest, as most are fully developed people and aren't represented by one or three words. But it helps us to keep track of one another.
We have a group that includes alters who are out most of the time or talk and input a lot. Then the rest, only occasionally pop up..

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How do you find out you have the alters and their identities, do you help them find an identity or do they have it defined by the time you've met them?

We have the "Void", which is the blackness of our subconscious, and then our safe space. Since October, we've worked on maintaining that our space inside is indeed safe, and it's okay for everyone to come out from the Void. So they have been. We've gone from 9 in October to 42 now, because of this.
As tomboy said, everyone already has their identity when they come forward. Some, though, are a bit confused as to who they are, why they exist, and what DID is really. We kind of have to mentor them as they get used to sharing a headspace.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:If you could sum what DID is to you in 1 sentence what would it be?

I think tomboy said it best. DID is both a blessing and a curse.
No, how about this..
DID is a wonderful coping mechanism that let us survive something we may not have been able to.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:Does your head feel too crowded sometimes, do your alters fight for space?

Definitely, it gets crowded up in here. I mean, so far, 42 voices, opinions, perspectives? Eesh!

I hope that gave another point of view on it all, and I wish you luck in your self-discovery.

What ever I said last night is gone now. I can't get back into the fantasy (edited to add: except it's not really a fantasy, I couldn't think of the word, but I just think it's more imagination) and I can't get back to that girl, I think it's probably a combination of trying to rationalise a lot of the dissociation I have. Knowing that I'm still here under someone else is far more reassuring than, not knowing anything. I definitely have my face me and head me, but they've gone silent and now I'm not sure what I am, but that little girl has definitely gone and so has the people she was talking about, although I'm not sure if one of them was me because that was the only one I could recognise clearly several aspects. I think that realistically this is probably just a response to PTSD, Dissociation within that including Depersonalization and Dereliazation that I just want to make sense of. Like a combination of self -soothing, fantasy and rationalisation, (edited to add:) but she was incredibly real, more real than I am I think, but not anymore, she's gone now.

I don't know and I'm not jumping to conclusions. But I think I might have been. What happened in my head was reassuring in fantasy but not necessarily me. I wrote down the names that the girl mentioned and as many details as I could remember just in case, but I really think it was a case of an over active imagination trying to make sense of what I've been going through using a lot of what I'd read here. I don't know where that leaves my inner and outer me (the damaged and real part and the I'm normal and ok part). If anything comes from this I'll be sure to let you know and I'll probably stick around for some reading. If you want to keep responding to the topic, please do.

Thanks to the those of you who already have, that means a lot to me.

AJ
xx

Try to see if you can bring back contact with her or something. Like, call out her name, either to yourself in your head or even out loud, or maybe try writing a note to her and leave it and see if she answers over time, or something like that. Because if you do indeed have DID, then she may be an alter, and she won't be gone forever. A lot of times with DID alters can go back into hiding, or they can get "blocked" from each other (meaning can't hear each other or communicate), or they can get "locked" inside to where they can't communicate or be heard, or other similar things (not always happening intentionally either). I'm not saying you have DID, but if you do, this might be the case for why suddenly everything seemed to "disappear" despite seeming so real. It possibly was all very real and is simply out of your access right now for some reason. It's good that you wrote down everything. Just keep an eye out for more experiences, symptoms, etc., maybe try to see if you can contact her, and if anything new happens, then you're welcome back here any time (well you're welcome here without anything new happening too).


-Cassandra

Thank you both. You seem so comfortable in yourselves in very reassuring. Mae yours was very helpful too.

It really means a lot to me that you've helped.

AJ
xx

Hi, we are a small system of five who's had a fairly easy life. The last one of us came to terms with being a Part in a System yesterday.

We are undiagnosed but on rereading the criteria for DID today I'd have to say it describes what has been going on in Teatime all her life.

Kas_Can_Fly wrote:How do you know, did you know fairly quickly or was it a gradual realisation?

Both.

Each of us had different levels of awareness of how our mind works.

Each one of us has their own timeline, but I didn't know that.
I was worrying at it repeatedly.

One Part of me has always understood instinctively what was wrong in the state of Denmark. Or, more literally, in the state of Teatime. I remember when I was just under three, for the first time imagining hovering above my own body. I was ill at the time, so being removed from all that was a positive experience for me and didn't scare me like it did the rest of us.

Some other Parts of me/Teatime were not originally so very different from the Others.
So some days I/Teatime would have fairly colourful memories. Not detailed, but more than mere signposts. It makes me sad now, looking back, that I didn't know about any of this. The others were leaving me all these signs and I just couldn't see them. My mind just kept sliding off.. and most importantly, it slid off the subject of the nature of my own memory as well.

It really helped me to read up on dissociation. Over time I bought I bought books, but really it was one of the Others. I read literature on the subject, but all the while I was stopping our hand. I'd go so far, and then I couldn't go any further,.. after a few days or weeks dissociation just became less interesting to me. Boring even. And then I'd throw the books out.

****TRIGGER SWITCHING****
The only memories I ever lost, were those of me switching in. It just felt like my body was halting md gait, like I was being awkward or clumsy. I'd turn one way, then the other. Or get this little twitch going on for a little while.. nothing to write home about. That's the bits I forgot. Switching. I was so scared of it, because of something that happened in our System, that I forgot all about it.
***** End TRIGGER *****

Yesterday I zoned out a little watching TV and then picked up my sketchbook.
Each of us took a turn in drawing a visual representation of themselves.

Dez drew a walkman with music spilling out of it.
Blue drew one of our tattoos I thought I'd chosen, but hadn't really, were another Note to Self I didn't quite get. The Others have been writing me emails for all these years, and I just thought I was leaving myself notes.
Nie drew a pair of glasses with smiley lenses and
Core drew a pint glass half full of water and signed it and added a big speechbubble next to each representation.

Then we all started writing about ourselves.
Or that is: I thought maybe I was just writing about myself. At first I felt really quite silly about it, although I could have sworn I wasn't feeling silly at all, because Parts of me weren't and the sensation seeps over.

My mind had glanced off my writing as well. Five distinctly different scripts and I have been blind to it.

I took the SCID-D online three or four times over the past decade and a half. It just seemed interesting at the time. Just researching, you know. It seemed so familiar, but not. Part of Teatime always knew, but I thought to myself "That's not what's going on at all" And I believed every word I said/thought[/i]. I really didn't think I was holding something back.

Anyway, the SCID-D - we were always right in the golden middle of the range I expected us to be in. Close but no cigar, move along, find myself interested in something else for a little while.

Things slipped my mind. I was just procrastinating.

So I guess the answer is - in hindsight I have always known. I never thought I'd have a hotel room scene.. though I watched that movie more times than I can count LOL

How did you find out, did you accept it easily or did you fight it?

It was easier to accept the additional measured voice of reason,
who would on occasion debate with me while I was cycling to work. Just me thinking to myself, convincing myself.
Everybody has a little devil and angel sitting on their shoulder, so I've always debated in my thoughts.
But to accept that I am an equal Part of a person made up of five individuals,.. certainly took a long while.

but on another day I'd feel like I'd always known there was three different Parts of Teacake and that I was one.
The storyteller voice, grinding over the same information over and over, Core's dispassionately amused review of the world and
the little Helper in us who calmed herself by calming others. But after I turned 8 I never answered their calls.

the rest of us have known all our life. But not consciously. Not while Hosting.

Was it someone else who brought it to your attention, or were you aware of it before?

For me, it's been a looooong trail of breadcrumbs. In the last three days it all clicked together for me, but Parts of myself have been guiding me to that realisation all my life.

What age did it develop in retrospect, what age were you when you realised?

I had some physical and emotional issues between age 2 and 4 and
emotional issues only between 4 and 8 years old.
Just an unfortunate series of events.

Two Parts stopped communicating in our System, one at 8 (only sharing signposts instead of full memories) and one at 12 (the one who wrote most of this post).
Now I feel awake, I have known as far back as I can remember.

do any of you not know at all but are just aware of different parts of you.

Yes, it used to freak me out something chronic. I'd ask a question of myself, thinking ok, if this is what's going on with me, then someobdy should anwer now and then I'd answer myself. Or so I thought. To be safe. Because it would be silly to think yourself into a disorder. Or so I thought.
All that fuss.. it made life so much harder for all Parts of me.

How do you find out you have the alters and their identities, do you help them find an identity or do they have it defined by the time you've met them?

Drawing a map of my/our mind is a great tool for me. If I hadn't done that yesterday I'd still be sitting here wondering if I am Five or not. Or which of the Five I'd identified I might be.. It creeped me out that I could be so sure one day and then not identify with that certainty at all.


For me they were all always there, but as I made try after try at a system map I just wasn't sure they weren't only traits of mine.
The steps I took to try and figure out if this was the way my mind was structured was (with vast periods of time between each):

- read up on dissociative spectrum
- find a name/designation you can call groups of aspects of yourself that are at odds with each other. They don't have the same goals, their morality might be scaled slightly differently. The way you feel in differing situations.
Names/designations give you a great way to call out to different "aspects of yourself" while you are thinking/relaxing.
I started doing that about two or three years ago, not really believing it all the while, but all the other Parts of Teatime where listening.

If you could sum what DID is to you in 1 sentence what would it be?

Not knowing that I had forgotten large chunks of my life.
It was all there, only they were just signposts, not full memories (because they hadn't been made by that aspect of Teatime, and two other Parts weren't sharing everything) and I couldn't tell the difference.
I would have sworn I had an average memory. I often wished I had a better memory. I was obsessessed with finding out all about how it worked, but never dared take a closer look at mine.

Edited to add: Does your head feel too crowded sometimes, do your alters fight for space?

More so when I used to be rude (or downright mean) to myself in my thoughts. Or so I thought. We were just being rude to each other.
Our System was very violent, but I just thought, that some days I didn't like some aspects of myself very much.
For me it was important to be friendly to myself. I needed to forgive myself a little bit. So I stopped swearing to/at myself so much.
When I did it, my next thought would be a friendly voice saying "I thought I wasn't going to do that anymore " or a picture of a swear tin would come into my mind with a big fat dollar sign on it. And I'd laugh to myself and remember to think nice
And as my thoughts became a little less violent and a little more accepting of the entirety of my personality, my mind felt less crowded.


Glad I wrote that out
Hope it makes sese

Teatimers

Thank you Teatime. I guess I'll just have to wait and see, but I suspect I don't. I've talked to myself for as long as I can remember, mostly just processing I think, but I don't really remember having imaginative friends or different parts of me when I was younger.

I will suddenly surprise myself that I am suddenly bold, or I used to go from being really shy to really talkative in some situations. Sometimes I get fiercely protective of my Mum and/or Sisters. Sometimes (very rarely) I stand up for myself, that's happened more times recently, but still a number I can count on my hands. I can remember being surprised at that and several times I've done things I've felt weren't me, but I've never associated it as being not me either.

If you imagine a piece of paper with loads of ripped rectangles kind of like this:

| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
|______________|

then as long is it all joins up at the bottom that seems to make perfect sense but as soon as those pieces are ripped all the way down and separate then it doesn't really make sense at all, unless they have their own names on them and me on them. The earliest I started having any kind of problem in my life was at the age of 9, then things got a whole step heavier in two different ways by 11 and horrific by the age of 14. There are still huge amounts I don't remember. Apart from during the traumatic stages I can if I try really hard, piece together what happened in my life, but I don't simply remember, I have to really follow things through from a period I do remember to where I'm trying to get to. I do have patches where I simply don't remember what's going on, but I've shut myself off so much I never go out or have any friends so no one can comment. I recognize changes in myself, but I still associate them as being me. But I have been aware of spending more and more time over the years in my head, I just put that down to a need to friendships and as I couldn't trust anyone in real life, then the friendships in my head ought to be safe, or at least if they weren't going to be I'd know. But I always changed slightly in them, I still think nothing of that apart from that little girl yesterday and those she spoke of. Even then there are parts I don't know.

See I can understand my face me and head me because the face me has to keep going (mostly) and the head me is the part of me that can't go on. But I am beginning to wonder if the head me is many head me's, if there's an in between me and then my face me or if it's just the two I know I've got. Realistically the head me and face me can be explained fairly well by depersonalisation and derealisation, PTSD and a GAD/Social Anxiety. Having said that they could also be explained by DID if I allowed them or at least the head me time to communicate. Now I am trying apart from yesterday which I don't know what to make of, I can't get anything and even my head me is lost. So I just don't know. I will wait and see. The more I type the more I think it is and the more I type the more I'm sure it's not. Oh well...

Thanks again
AJ
xx