We try to be Nondescript (a journey thread)

I really feel like posting here lately but don't have the energy to write a summary of all that's been going on. I have had the best days of my life, to the degree that I thought maybe I was close to leaving DID behind, and then I have started to have quite a terrible time for a while. I might have guessed that I wasn't going to leave DID behind before actually dealing in some way with the trauma that caused it, but I didn't. Despite how awful things can sometimes be, I do feel I'm still on a trajectory of healing. It's just much slower than I wish it to be.

Vague summary aside, the struggle with gender issues is extreme. Some of us can't stand being in a female body and feeling compelled to play the "woman" role. Others can't stand not being more feminine in presentation. It is just the typical trans DID problem. It gets more complicated with our hetero SO involved. He sees our gender distress as a side-effect of our condition, and thus not exactly "real," but we are who we are, made of disorder or not. It's really hard.

We're thinking of making a zine about being guys in a DID body. Cause otherwise we have to be invisible. No one's allowed to know who we are, we just have to pretend we don't exist.

It's rsad cause they're real important to us. They help us all the time. it's not their fault they're stuck in there. I want them to be happy and they aren't. Like what if they're really cool and no one knows? ____ says they're not real and we shouldn't let anybody know and if we let them out it's like they're more real and that's not good. I like them. They saved us so we should help them. I hate being secret.

When i was first diagnosed and exploring this forum i read a ton of your thread here. I'm sorry to hear things are difficult and slow lately. but progress is still progress!

i can relate to the feelings about gender - we are in a female body too, but our current host is agender and since i didn't know i was multiple when they took over, we struggled a lot with it. ended up coming out to people and getting surgery. i don't regret it at all, but it was strange to then realize that there are still a bunch of girls inside. i think DID adds a whole layer of complication to an already complex issue.

Nondescript wrote:We're thinking of making a zine about being guys in a DID body.

this is a rad idea. i love doing zines and have been pondering topics for a new one recently. if you have any interest in collaborating on something, send me a message! i think that would be really fun and therapeutic, and i don't know any other multiples. went to a group of them once, but everyone else was pretty low-functioning and i couldn't relate, as we are still pretty covert and high-functioning in most situations.

in any case, glad you updated and i look forward to your posts

Hey Rae,

Awesome to hear from you. Thanks for writing. We started the transition during our early 20s but we couldn't afford or handle all that medical stuff. Cool you got through it. Now things have gone so far in the direction of conventional womanhood over here it's kinda funny. Our front is androgynous. Yeah, so I'll msg you about the zine.

Recently I have had some frank amnesia, much more than I normally experience these days. All of it was related to recent triggers and switching.

That phase seems to be over for now. Instead I have been experiencing the more typical for me experience of feeling disoriented, feeling like I don’t know what’s going on or what time of day it is or what day it is or what I’m doing, even though I do know. It’s like I know intellectually but not from an experience level. This is not disabling, just very disconcerting, uncomfortable and tiring.
I haven’t been able to find meaning in this experience. While I was waking up the other day, I got the idea (which may be true or not) that the reason for this frequent experience of disorientation and a certain limited amnesia is switching from another part that I am unaware of, with an observer or other part filling in details to maintain continuity. The evidence in favor of this is that when I do have semi-co-conscious switching, I often feel this way on the way to the outside when another part is leaving.

But it’s also possible that this is plain depersonalization/derealization, which can be very disconcerting. One thing that makes me think that it’s not simple depersonalization is that this phenomenon tends to be less severe/frequent if I try to “watch” it, and I find that my depersonalization gets worse when I focus on it.

On the one hand, thinking about this seems like a waste of time. On the other hand, understanding how I work is important to me and may help me progress.

Yesterday I had an experience with my husband that proved that the stuff "I" wrote about in my last post is not simple depersonalization. It's just switchin with varying levels of amnesia. My therapist has said that I'm going through a new realization process. It seems that some alters that had not been aware of DID are starting to become aware, and my awareness is becoming more detailed. It is extremely slow. I know there are other ones that are coming out, but I don't know who they are or anything about them other than what my husband tells me, and sometimes the indirect knowledge of what they have done.

I was telling her about this experience, of having amnesia of an experience (for example, I don't rememer doing ____ but I suddenly know it was done), and she confirmed it's a common experience for people with DID. I remember this happening often in school. I was in therapy today saying that I knew another, unfamiliar but close part of me had been talking with my husband and that the topic was DID, but that was all I knew. Then later in the session I had sudden knowledge about part of the conversation, but I had no memory of the experience. And what is even weirder is that I'm not the one who was in session and I am describing all this from "knowledge without experience." DID is so topsy turvy.

The other thing I discussed with her was that even though we are relatively high functioning and no one would guess what we don't know stuff (except I know people find it strange when I don't know their names and I should), is that even if it seems to flow much of the time, it takes mental energy to coordinate it all, even if not consciously.

It's been a while since I've updated on the neurofeedback part of my recovery journey. The most obvious change is that it has greatly decreased my hyperarousal symptoms (as described in the "coping with trauma-related dissociation" workbook.) It has also given me more self-awareness. Overall it has decreased the level of distinction between many alters, which I guess is good but is also disconcerting. If you count on a part being a certain way, and s/he is no longer predictably that way, it can be upsetting. We still are strongly amnesiac between some parts, though. Yesterday I had a really rough day, in part probably because I hadn't done NFB in a couple of weeks, and today I was in bad shape, lots of switching, confusion, just feeling like I couldn't handle things. 10 minutes of NFB, and I had perspective, was calmer, could cope, and went on to have a good day. I also could see my dysfunctional brainwaves and know that I wasn't just "being a wimp" or something like that. I'm so thankful I have this tool.

One thing I'd say about neurofeedback for DID is that I would not want to go to a provider who does not have extensive experience with dissociation and developmental trauma. The problem is that most providers do not have this experience, and some do not really pay attention to the potential over-stimulation that can happen if certain sites or frequencies are used without customizing them according to the client's feedback. I also think that many providers force people to pay for $500 brain maps when they are going to essentially do symptom-based treatment, anyway. (I guess brain maps can be valuable in some cases. I am just skeptical.)

thank you for updating. i like to read your story.

me too!

Nondescript wrote:

The other thing I discussed with her was that even though we are relatively high functioning and no one would guess what we don't know stuff (except I know people find it strange when I don't know their names and I should), is that even if it seems to flow much of the time, it takes mental energy to coordinate it all, even if not consciously.

yeah tell me about it. So exhausting!

Thanks, SamsLand and beccabee. It's always nice to see when you guys post, too.

I was in a car accident where another person ran a red light and my car was totaled. Weird because I had just been thinking about car wrecks due to MDs' post. The car plowed right into my door and I could have been seriously injured. Instead just whiplash and (I guess? the doctor said) a mild concussion. I think part of the reason for my mild injury (aside from luck) was that another part of me said right before impact, "it's going to be okay," and gave an image of "crash over, everything okay" and this body relaxed. I felt no fear or tension at all.

Anyway, I realized that while I have been rather dazed for the couple of days since it happened, it doesn't feel different from how I feel sometimes anyway, except there is a different headache and extra dizziness. If I did need to seek treatment, I would not want to disclose this because it feels too personal and health care providers know little about DID. So I don't really know what to do. Maybe I'll post about this. on the broader board so someone might read it and answer.

Nondescript wrote:I was in a car accident where another person ran a red light and my car was totaled. Weird because I had just been thinking about car wrecks due to MDs' post. The car plowed right into my door and I could have been seriously injured. Instead just whiplash and (I guess? the doctor said) a mild concussion. I think part of the reason for my mild injury (aside from luck) was that another part of me said right before impact, "it's going to be okay," and gave an image of "crash over, everything okay" and this body relaxed. I felt no fear or tension at all.

We're sorry that this happened to you, Nondescript.

MDs