Exploring myself further *may trigger*

So I'd say i've pretty much got myself figured out. I've finally discovered that what I've suffered from for all these years is DID and I understand what each alter represents and I have perfect communication with them. I guess the one thing that is unclear, or at least has been unclear is why I developed it. I posted a while ago about my very vivid imagination as a child and how that would often seep into reality and I would get confused between reality and fiction. I also proposed this was why I developed DID because I preferred this imaginary world to reality and because I spent so much time there at a very young age I didn't really make proper connections with people or experience a lot of stuff that would be important to a young kid who's mind is developing. I know people were skeptical of this for 2 reasons. 1, the fact that a vivid imagination could cause DID and 2, the fact I stated I preferred the imaginary world to reality signified to some people that I was trying to escape something in reality.

I've since been doing a lot of research into Fantasy Prone Personality and after speaking to a doc they agreed it was likely I had this. The explanation of a FFP is here-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_prone_personality

Here are just a few things that FFP involves and that I experience- fantasizing often as child, having an actual fantasy identity, experiencing imagined sensations as real, having vivid sensory perceptions, having out-of-body experiences, excellent hypnotic subject.

This would explain my deep involvement in fantasy pretty much since birth. Now FFP is caused by many different things, as are most "disorders" and it states that it can be caused by psychological and neurological factors- "There may also be others who are neurologically predisposed to fantasy...Or fantasies may be particularly compelling because they have low or impaired hardwiring for reality testing."


For me I feel it's neurological because I hadn't had anything negative happen to me at that age to cause any kind of psychological trauma. I think this is to do with how my brain is naturally wired, whether that occurred as some kind of problem when developing in the womb, to genetics or simply being just one of those things.
I could often make myself see things from my imagination which was really cool but was also really scary as I would often make horrible things appear if I was feeling scared, worried or alone and those things did traumatize me a bit and effect me somewhat today. This also caused a great deal of loneliness for me growing up because nobody else could relate to these experiences and I felt neglected and alone. I didn't want to go to my parents for comfort because they wouldn't understand and I didn't really make any friends til later on in life and I think that constant feeling of being alone as a kid didn't help matters. I found this little bit of info that I could relate to a lot-
"There is also a higher reporting of loneliness among FPP people – which can have two explanations. Either they retreated into a fantasy world to cope with their loneliness, or they manufactured their loneliness because they prefer their fantasy life to interacting with others."

So I still strongly stand by the belief that I was never abused when I was younger, I was never subjected to anything that was that traumatic (except for the stuff that my mind conjured up) and I had a good family around me but I just couldn't connect. My FPP caused a lot of issues for me when I was 2-3 years of age because that imaginary world was so strong that it made me neglect reality too much and I do believe it effected how I developed. I'm not saying all kids with a FPP with develop DID but it's the same as all kids who suffered abuse won't end up with DID. I just think this is how it is for me and I'm still very much affected by my FPP now. I know some people are bound to be skeptical but it's always good to question things. Perhaps some other people here might be able to relate to my story as well.

My first post "My Explanation" is here- dissociative-identity/topic102715.html

A pretty good report on FPP- http://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde ... rsonality/

First of all, congrats for moving forward in your discovery of yourself. Clearly you're going to know your system better than anyone else. Since childhood neglect is another cause of DID, it might be useful to rule that out over time. In the absence of sufficient interaction and socialization, a child can develop DID and to me, profound neglect is a form of abuse. Do you have siblings close in age to you who are well adjusted with reasonable social skills? Do you recall your caregivers (presumably your parents) engaging you or trying to engage you often in childhood? You don't really need to answer those here, they're more food for thought.

Herschel Walker and Chris Costner-Sizemore are two people who have self-reported that their DID developed from something other than abuse or (apparently) neglect. It certainly seems plausible that someone who is physiologically predisposed to find distinctions between reality and fantasy to be fuzzy could develop DID.

Hey Johnny-Jack. I have sister who is 4 years older than me. She's completely "normal" for lack of a better word. She had quite a lot of friends when she was younger because there were people more her age that lived on our street so I saw her playing with her friends a lot and she didn't like me joining in so that was another thing that made me want to hang out with the imaginary people because I was accepted.
As for my parents they definitely showed me love and tried to get me to engage with them. My parents always liked to get us to try new things but I just didn't feel happy with that. I guess nothing really satisfied me and I wanted to be alone. Even now as an adult they try and get me to do all that I can with my life.

All I can think is how much I neglected reality from a young age and like I said I think this affected how I developed because I wasn't getting a lot of influence from the outside world and when I got to about 11-12 years old I found myself unable to cope with pressures of life because I'd always been able to hide and I'd never dealt with emotion before. That's when I first met Darren.

This was very interesting to read. Thank you for sharing this and letting us follow your journey towards healing. Best of luck.