Question about DID and some relationship confusion. . .

I realize that it is not possible to practically diagnos a person in the absence of a professional actually evaluating them. I don't really need an in depth analysis but have been really confused for the past few weeks, bodering on concerned regarding my current girlfriend that I have been with for a few months. This relationship is over a decade after we were first together, when we were both much younger (college) and that time period did not last very long, and we were not as close/intimate on the same level that we are now.

I've been walking around in a fog for the last few weeks unable to talk to anyone around me like friends or family since I don't think they could grasp the situation and I don't want to talk about somewhat personal things and details with any of them - but I feel like I am losing my mind and could just use some feedback and or validation regarding what has been going on with my current relationship with my girlfriend who I seriously think has DID. I previously researched Narcissistic Personality Disorder and even studied some information regarding sociopaths, and although she comes close in both types of pathology, I cant honestly say that she either has NPD or is a full blown sociopath. That ultimately led me to Dissociative Identity Disorder based on all of the information that I have compiled and some conclusions that I have drawn.

In a nutshell and it is a pretty big nutshell:

My girlfriend is 32 years old and still sleeps with a giant stuffed bear that she has asigned a personality to in every way imaginable. The bear sleeps in bed with us at night. (One morning when we were having sex she noticed the bear was facing us at the end of the bed and turned him around so he "couldn't see".)

She has an extremely weird emotionally incestual relationship with a very controlling and over-protective father. Too many details regarding that to mention.

She does have at least two different/distinct personalities at times: one of them is when she reverts into a little girl mode, and talks as if she is 9 or 10 years old / her voice changes and she is practically not functional in the real world when she is in that personna. In that mode - she avoids adult responsibilities and anything that would require her to be mature. Note: she has an adult: functional personality that enables her to deal with work and some life circumstances when required. The contrast between the two is very noticable.

If and when she is under any type of inter-personal stress regarding something in her life - she has on several occasions just fainted right on the spot at that moment and does not remember most or all of what happened.

Pathological liar combined with what has appeared to be a significant lack of empathy for others unless the situation requires she fakes her emotions. At times I look at her and wonder if she is even real since she lacks any depth or genuine emotions. Everything seems pre-planned or executed based on a given situation.

She has little or no significant memory of childhood events that you would think would be normal for someone to remember. There are huge gaps in the timeline of her life spanning what seems to be entire years.

Sexually: and that side of things is very complex. She told me that after we broke up the first time we were together over a decade ago that she was 'raped' by a guy she was dating, but does not remember anything about it aside from being raped. I let that go and assumed that it happened and she was able to deal with it on some level. BUT: then when we were talking about when she was married before we got back together for the second time (presently), she told me that she did not have sex with her fiance before they got married except for [i]one[i] time when they when they were engaged and she was drunk and he raped her. I was confused regarding why if that happened that she would marry him, and when I questioned her about it, she said that she never talked to her fiance at the time about it but she knew it happened. They were married for 2 years after that.

She blocks out anything and everything in her life that does not fit into a kind of facade that she builds around herself, including ending relationships and forgetting the other person ever existed and there are even now, huge gaps in her ability to remember what would be emotionally significant events and situations.

To conclude: back to the sexual side of things. I have never been with a woman that wants to have sex as much as she does: but there is not any emotional element to it. Just sex: at least twice a day and the type of sex, scenarios, etc with her is way off the charts - including most things that other women I have been with do not / or would not do - but despite the intensity and scope of the sexual intimacy, she at times immediately reverts back to a very immature and child-like personality following it.

She also can go from appearing to be very caring at times, to turning emotionally cold almost instantly. Including if we are on the phone and I try to bring up something important related to our relationship and she doesn't want to talk about it, she just hangs up and turns her phone off and when/if she turns it on hours later or comes home, then acts like nothing happened and everything is back to normal.

I just really feel like I am losing my mind over here. And I left out for the sake of not going overboard on my topic/question - the recent cheating/infidelity that I caught her engaged in. Although I can't really say that I caught her since in hindsight she started making her behavior more obvious and kind of got caught in a way to test me and see what my reaction would be.

Silverthorn

HI Silverthorn,

I don't know if I will get a lot out but I wanted to let you know I read your post and while triggered by it felt some similarity to who I was in recent past. I was triggered because I realized "i was like that, wasn't I" (though a dampened version I think). Having no idea why back then.

I had young (with a teddy) and very sexual parts (never enough) that connected with my now H, and probably led to much confusion for him. He stuck it out. I completely ignored emotions and had parts to deal with my life that essentially were detached.

For us the infidelity was a tool to sabotage healthy relationships. I learned from my mistakes though and was able to not do it to my H. But I have a siblings who haven't.... Healthy, emotional relationships are foreign to us and very scary. I suspect the same with your GF.

I liked this article, it highlights the partner's (your) needs (allowed me to see my H's needs). It might help you decided if you want to get into therapy with this for yourself.....

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... %3dpubmed&

Hi Silverthorn,

I am glad you found us and hope that we can help you and your girlfriend.

It actually is possible to say with a high degree of confidence that someone does or does not have DID, from their self report alone. It is a little more difficult to diagnose another person without hearing from them their subjective experience of what we observe about them. Many of us diagnosed ourselves first then had the diagnosis confirmed by an expert. Many others of us were diagnosed by someone who cares about us but has no training or experience in psychotherapy or even psychology; my own therapist says this happens in an astonishingly large proportion of DID clients, compared to clients with other issues.

Your girlfriend may be a multiple. Given her history that you already know about, this would be not at all remarkable. Being a multiple, however, would not appear to be her biggest problem.

You have identified several other very serious problems. There is ongoing emotional incest, and at a minimum she has a very prominent child ego state that is rather dysfunctional in her daily life. Together, these are a very toxic combination. Her fainting reflects an extreme stress response, a chronic vasovagal response. This is a clear sign of hypoarousal of the autonomic nervous system, the "freeze" part of the primitive animal "fight / flight / freeze" response to a life threat from a predator or other aggressor. You also describe that she has hyperarousal of the autonomic nervous system: her hypersexual behavior. You may enjoy this about her now but for her and eventually for you too it may be unhealthy. Many sexual abuse survivors have intermittent or chronic problems with sexual hyperarousal, and this frequently leads to social behavior that is problematic or even dangerous. Think sex addiction and high risk sexual behaviors. Finally, what looks to you like pathological lying could be exactly that, or it could be the net effect of heavy switching with amnesia, or it could be a combination of the two.

This is a new relationships so it is likely you have seen only the tip of the iceberg at this point. I hope you can help her get help. However, if you push her to get help she is likely to cut you off exactly as she has cut off all these previous people in her life. Denial is a very serious problem.