Can this be true? How do I know?

I posted here a few months ago, sorry for not replying for all of the replies I got, I think I must have switched consciously or subconsciously to arrange my life. At the moment I feel like I'm somehow more capable of dealing with the things I developed DID in the first place, and lately I've had this horrible feeling that

1. My father, and not some neighbour, indeed did sexually abuse me as a child (still can't be sure though, I do know that he "slightly" abused me as a pre-teenager)
2. I have always had the feeling that my mom doesn't like me very much, but have thought it's just because of personality differences. But what if it's because she knows my father sexually abused me and is blaming me for the abuse or the fact that I haven't completely blocked it out like my sister?

So how can I be sure? What if I'm just paranoid? Previously I sort of had hallucinations of my father and mother hovering over me all the time like some monsters, blaming and accusing me of everything I do. I still have that but not as much. How do I know I'm just not somehow projecting my feelings towards the actual abuser to my parents? I do feel pretty horrible, sick and sweaty whenever I see my parents and if I run in to them accidentally I might get an actual panick attack, unless of course I switch personalities.

But since my parents have also often times treated me very lovingly (especially after I became mentally ill, they haven't criticised me of anything since, yet I have horrible gut feeling around them even if they act like mr. and ms. Perfect Parents) so now it is very hard to combine that Perfect Parent behaviour with the fact that they might indeed be harboring this horrible secret that's basically ruined my life so far, AND are secretly blaming and hating me for reacting to it.

For some reason my parents basically stopped contacting me a few weeks ago, which happened at the same time I started realizing this, even though I haven't said anything to them, and now I feel like I miss the Perfect Mom&Dad and hate the Monsters. Which ones are real?? I've been filled with anger for a while which has kept me from feeling anything else but now I might actually have to face the fact that my whole life has been a complete lie. (I've been very "close" with my parents up till recently)

Oh, this is probably not relevant but today I had my first experience of a "classic" DID symptom, (which I never have, I still question if I even have any form of DID), not knowing or having memory of how I ended up in some place. I even said this out loud to an acquintance which based on his expression I probably shouldn't have done...and now I don't remember how I got here where I'm now. Maybe I have dementia. I do remember "my" last thought was "we need more cooperation", whatever that means.

For reference here is the earlier thread:
DID Forum: Is it DID or just me?

scharah wrote:For some reason my parents basically stopped contacting me a few weeks ago

You might ask them why.

Many survivors never get any clear answer to the question "What happened to me?" Maybe something happened, maybe not. Fearing and "feeling" that something happened does not mean it did happen.

I don't know exactly what happened to cause my DID. What I do know is I have DID. And in a sense that is enough information for me to act on. To be safe, I will never allow my children to be with any member of my family of origin unless someone I trust is there with them at all times.

Have you been diagnosed? Have you been evaluated?

Una+ wrote:For reference here is the earlier thread:

You might ask them why.

Many survivors never get any clear answer to the question "What happened to me?" Maybe something happened, maybe not. Fearing and "feeling" that something happened does not mean it did happen.

I don't know exactly what happened to cause my DID. What I do know is I have DID. And in a sense that is enough information for me to act on. To be safe, I will never allow my children to be with any member of my family of origin unless someone I trust is there with them at all times.

Have you been diagnosed? Have you been evaluated?

Yep, I guess it would make more sense to ask, but I feel it's pointless because if they have done the things I said in my post, then they wouldn't give me the real answer anyway "Well we got the feeling you're about to find out what crap we did to you as a child so that's why". (That's the reason I've come up with but I don't if I'm being paranoid).

I remember someone said I'm being obsessive over my parents, but let's say I decide they are pure evil and never see them again. Then when I'm 90 years old I remember it was my next door neighbour who did the abuse and not my parents but now they've been dead for 30 years. Or, I decide they only did the stuff I do remember and can somehow maybe forgive, and keep seeing them and being all daughtery, then when I'm 90 I remember they did abuse me as a child and I've wasted my whole life socializing with them scumbags. Because if I knew it was my father, I would cut all contact. But I can't now because I might be horribly wrong. You know what I mean?

I have been in the mental health services for about 10 years, I've had diagnoses such as severe depression, borderline personality disorder, identity confusion something something, obsessive compulsive disorder, derealization/depersonalization dr. and maybe something else. My previous therapist agreed I might have DID but don't know if he really believed it or understood it. So I don't have any official diagnoses but that's the only one that makes sense to me. At least some type of DID. I've been trying to live like I don't have it and the voices in my head are just a brain malfunction but then everything is even more confusing and things just seem to happen to me without me realizing why. But I would like to know if I have actual personalities with names and ages and jobs etc or are they just fractures. Or I don't know if that's important. All I know I'm very unhappy.

I can relate to this mixed feeling about parents and not knowing the truth. My mother never treated me like she liked me and I wrestled with that thought for years thinking it can't be true. She was the only contact I had and despite being in the same house as a kid, I had very little contact with my dad as I was growing up. I've only got snapshots of memory from childhood and a feeling of being in the wrong all the time.

I could never put my finger on what was wrong about it all. It looked on the outside to be a perfectly nice childhood with a nice garden to play in, but if that was the case why did I try and run away several times? And why do I have a whole load of alter people? And why have I got a history of other mental health problems? And why do I not want to speak to them because they cause anxiety? I have to get through fake conversations and play along with it, and afterwards I feel it's all false and I've been forced to bluff over everything with stuff I'd never normally say. Then my people start getting angry and I don't know why they react like this, apart from one of them who calls her 'toxic'.

I've flipped between never wanting to talk to them again, and then they send a parcel or something and I think I'm wrong, I've made it up that they're horrible, and I'm just ungrateful. But if I look at the things they've done 'for me', they're all a bit off somehow. As if they're presents for someone who is not me. Or it's stuff that was buy one (for her) and get the other free. Or cheap clothes three sizes too big.

The lack of father contact has made me wonder why I couldn't be near him, and I've had odd flashbacks that I'm not sure whether to believe. I'll never know the truth. The best I can do is mend myself with therapy and become a bit more autonomous (that the right word?) and not need them at all. Become a bit more impervious if you like.

Not sure if that helps but I can relate to what you're saying. I don't have a diagnosis either but the presence of people, however vague, is indicative of something. If I don't hear from my parents I must admit I take advantage of it for a bit of free space and thinking time. Figuring everything out seems to take forever, but each year I know more than last year. Keep going and good luck

I can relate to not knowing if my memories and my feelings are real. I was just talking to my T about this yesterday. Alex(10 yr old alter) told me that i'm not remembering right or only remembering 1/2 way. She filled me in on what happened in the beginning and it was nothing I thought it was. She took all the abuse so she would know. I told my T I didn't know if my memories are real or not, "how do I know what's real?" She said, "it doesn't matter if you think, feel and have memories of it then it happened because that's what you know and believe."

For me, I have no way to have my experiences validated because I don't know R's last name and I live 1/2 away across the country from where it took place. Plus I never told anyone. I know it happened, but I keep trying to deny it because believing it is too upsetting to handle. I don't want to know what else Alex can tell me about it, I don't know if I can handle it. I had a break down in my T's office about this last memory she shared with me. But I know i'll have to face it to heal some day. But i'm scared as s**t to know.

I can certainly relate. My sister, I know was and is an abuser, so it's not hard to break off contact with her, but the other abuser that I know of was either mother or a male friend of my brother at a time when he was supposed to be keeping me safe. That was the s*x abuse and it scares me not knowing who it was. I can hear the words and feel the pain and hear the story retold by my alter, but I can't see the face. My brother was always my hero when I was little. I don't want to think of him as someone I can't trust. He lives locally, but I honestly don't see him that much any more, but I go over and over it in my head. My therapist at the hospital says that either he did it, or he allowed someone to do it when he was supposted to be protecting me, either of which puts in a position where trust has to be questioned. All I've got left of my family are my parents who just ooz with CONDITIONAL love. Their in denial, but they'll always be here to support me...and complain about what a burden my kids and I are.

I dread my children and I losing the semblance of a family that we have, but I don't want to do anything to set up my children for a repeat of my childhood.

KK

Yep, I feel that these types of situations are so sick and twisted that it's pretty hard to find people who can relate in any way..I realized one day that that's part of why I find it so hard to talk to people, for example if someone says "I'm going to go visit my parents this weekend, it's can be so annoying, my mom always wants me to bake cakes with her", then I can't really say "Yeah, what I find annoying is that my mom doesn't care that I was molested as a child, but the cake thing too, yeah". Which applies to pretty much everything. People that I have the most in common with are usually in a mental institution (where I've been a few times too). But I guess DID or DDNOS or whatever I have has somewhat saved me from having totally lost touch with reality.

But lately I've figured that as long as being around my parents makes me sick I'm going to avoid it. I guess it's not really about "what horrible things they might have done" but accepting the horrible things they HAVE done or didn't stop from happening and that they are aware of what they've done but choose to blame me for my current issues "You just have a bad attitude", "You don't appreciate what we've done (bought) for you" and that I don't have the normal, loving parents that I've always wanted.

I remember even in university I always wanted all the professors to be my mothers and fathers and until recently I kept reading about families of celebrities and imagining I'm their child (I think I would pick Jeff Bridges to be my father and Meryl Streep to be my mother), but now I think I've been coming to terms with the fact that I just don't have that and even felt that maybe there's some universal love for everyone..

I went through something very similar with my biological parents.

What happened was that my mother married young and had children young. She was emotionally dysfunctional from her own issues in life, and then was emotionally immature because she was young (and in part because she was just really immature in personality at that stage in her life).

So when my father turned into Mr. Creeper the Jekyll/Hyde drunk, and chose me to be 'his' (and for my brother to be my mother's child), my mother actually felt jealous. Because it all boiled down to attention, and I received more attention from my father (even though it was lots of bad attention) than she did.

I was also unknowingly being used as a pawn in the warped mind games he liked to play with pretty much everyone, including my mother. He could 'punish' her by taking me on a 'date' instead of her.

So all of this combined with her being emotionally unhealthy and immature, meant she blamed me, instead of seeing my father as the psychopathic piece of crap that he was and taking it out on him. This was also in part because she deep down terrified of him and also felt trapped, so blaming him was not an option, in the way that she perceived and processed things. Yet she still had that anger that needed to go somewhere.

So the result was that my father abused me, and my mother was jealous and thus regarded me with an aloof, resentful demeanor.

Don't skimp on the therapy, is all I can say.