How are your siblings?

Do you ever wonder why and how you ended up with this disorder? And how are your siblings?

Although we went through the same things we have reacted very differently.

My sister, I think. has Histrionic PD, and so has coped much better as she has high (although false) self-esteem, and makes it her life's mission to get praise and enjoys it. While I've spent my life dissociating and being self-destructive.

I know I am not technically mentally ill, but I sometimes wish I was, because the effects are the same and it's just as debilitating. But not even the MH system properly recognizes what I've got.

I do think I was/ am more sensitive than my sister and had a big imagination and was introverted. I always liked pretending to be other people, mainly out of self-loathing, rather than playing kids games. My first alter was a pretty girl, she was the 'good' part of me that I wished I could be.

My sister doesn't get my disorder at all and I don't bother explaining it to her.

How do your siblings feel about your disorder?

The brother at first did not believe us telling him. I think he still does not but Elliot and Walt are convinced he does. Or at least cares enough to go along with it. Sister on the other hand would believe us but lacks the ability to do so as she has mental handicaps of her own. She can feel when we change though which I find.. Extraordinary.
-Al

It doesn't matter what they think of it as long as we can make the most of it! Even if he didn't believe us brother seems to be ok with all of this. Our troubles and environments molded us, and brother, into better people then we would be without it. Him with his rocket science and us with making a legend and myth be real.
-Stephen

Three sisters. Successful. And, sadly, damaged, though maybe not as much as me, since I have DID. And in varying states of denial.

The middle sister has low self esteem from her mother telling her she was ugly her life.
and pressuring her to overachieve in school causing a breakdown around the time she went to university. Drugs alcohol and suicide attempts years after. she took many many years to recover mentally and now is quite happy.

My older sister became the mother figure to the sisters and concentrated on becoming a mother.
A wonderful mother at that!

But I wasn't the child of there mother so (half sisters)... I became I guess the object of a broken marriage. An innocent creature to blame.
(just to give you an idea of the sadism of this woman she cut up a cat stuck it in a freezer and blamed my father)

I guess they never received the type of abuse I did well says my main protector.

I have a brother, and he's been dignosed with ADD but I believe he has a dissociative thing like I do. Doesn't seem as intense as me, but there's things that definitely point to it. He fairly often doesn't remember important things he's told despite hearing them at the time and responding to the things- such as him being really excited about going to a renaisance faire with me last month but then totally forgot we were going to go day-of, no recollection of talking about it or planning the trip. He also told me that he goes on a type of 'autopilot,' and the way he described it was similar to how I used to describe whatever I have. He still lives with my parents though and my mom is still in denial somewhat about my stuff, so when I mentioned it sounded similar to what I experience she denied it and said I was imagining things, though she agreed his memory is getting pretty bad lately (that's how it came up).

one sibling is really outgoing, the party type, very active, somewhat histrionic and sometimes sleepwalks. has a lot of grief about the matriarch of the family, which i don't remember even though it involved me. took awhile but got her life together, yet still seems restless. she's very fun to be around and i see her as trustworthy.

the other is proactive and the type who likes to be in control, picks up the slack only to be disappointed when others aren't as functional, but despite her intelligence seems 'fake' at times ('stepford smiler' moments w/ a lot of automatic responses). anyway she's a great parent and a good person. i think she gets frustrated with me nowadays, and parts dislike/don't trust her, but we used to have a great relationship.

I present with some clinical issues they don't, for whatever reason (tho no-one IRL is aware of my mental specifics nor I theirs), but I suspect they have (at least aspects of) dissociation problems.
they're also far more motivated than I am, to the point where they overextend themselves.
(edit: a good way to phrase the difference is that I'm self-destructive while they're self-constructive; I think it might be the age gap between me & them and how they had a mutual, reliable social group outside of the home that I didn't. Though that could also mean they had to repress deeper because they were under more pressure to appear normal)

Well, I'm the only girl and when I went to my brothers with possible abuse, I discovered that neither one of them remember anything about childhood either. Then they refused to talk to me about any thing, which was ok with me. God knows what we went through!
Since then, they have both been dx with ADD and are medicated. It makes me wonder if I should go in for ADD eval, but then again, I don't need one more dx or med. . .

One sister has an eating disorder. She claims to remember everything but I highly doubt it. Both sisters have been in abusive marriages. Both brothers have been abusers. One of my brothers seems to be a paranoid schizophrenic who chooses to be homeless. Most of them do not remember our childhood from what I have discovered. *tw* They have all made serious attempts at suicide and we have all had addictions. I am terrified of failing at suicide and having to live crippled, so I don't try. *end tw* We do not talk to each other. Our children are messed up too. I have one with extreme social phobia and one that was living with an abuser and she now has ptsd. One sister has a child with an eating disorder. The other sister has a child that is either a sociopath or schizophrenic. I really haven't seen him in 25 years so I'm not sure. I've heard horrible stories though. When I go to a new doctor and have to fill out forms and I get to the part that asks about mental illness in the family, I put "all of them". (I really do). Now we could talk about my parents siblings, but I don't think there's time for that!

We are sort of a two sides of a mirror with my sister.

I'm introvert and have bottled all my feelings away. Rest can be copied from earlier post by misosoup "and had a big imagination and was introverted. I always liked pretending to be other people, mainly out of self-loathing, rather than playing kids games. My first alter was a pretty girl, she was the 'good' part of me that I wished I could be."

My sister is an opposite. She is too much in contact with her feelings (alters?). She was always in trouble and has never been able to control herself anyway. she has cut herself and has bulimia. And she is the source of as least 20% of my trauma.

I think we are two different sides of did:
Alters easily influence her and she always tells that 'I can feel my anger coming. Please stop' and if you don't well it's not healthy for you. I know

I instead just forget everything and every alter is equally unaware of others so everyone gets few days of a month total and rest is blur. No one is allowed to show any feelings at all. If someone is about to break a new one takes her place and life goes on.