question about possibility of alters/switching

hii, I have a question about possibly having alters in control of my body, or influencing who I am at certain moments. I always have these weird 'moods' (not really moods, but kind of), which make me feel like I'm not really me. I still feel like I'm in control of my body in these weird moods, but at the same time I don't feel like myself at all during those times. like suddenly things I used to find boring or dislike are suddenly very interesting to me, and just ways of how I see the world feel very different. So I had the question if these are alters taking over a bit, or if these are fragments influencing my behavior, or if this is just normal and these are just parts of my personality being particularly strong at sudden moments?

i kind f use this as a way to get my thoughts in order on this thing and to get a bit ov an overview for myself, but also like please help me. I also have my last appointment at my old T next week and I want to tell him about posibly having something DID related, but I'm terified and I have no idea how to do that. I'm starting with a new T the week after that who is specialized in dissociative disorders and i want to be able to really talk to them about this whole thing, so i want to have had a real conversation about it with someone else first to normalize it for myself and to make me less scared. also, I'm having a very bad denial couple of days, and I need something to pull me out of that or I'll make mysel go crazy.

so, a couple of weeks ago i was complaining to my friend about this weird mood i was in where i suddenly felt really girly and interested in clothes and make up and just did not feel like me at all and everything was weird and awkward, because i felt like i had forgotten how i usually act. apparantly that wasn't the first time i told him about that and he aksed if it was a good idea to keep track of how i feel as a person for a couple of days, so i decided to do that. i also decided that i would stop to pretend like nothing is off and just let me be what i feel like at that moment without trying to hold it in, whilst keeping track of those changes. because of this i found out that i have 4 main 'moods', who kind of all have their own name and age, which seems very weird to me but okay...

the first one is a 21-23 year old boy named Brian. I don't really notice much change in who I am when I'm him, but I do get overwhelmingly uncomfortable with my body and everything gender related, like everything about my life is just wrong. Also, when I'm him i get very foggy, and i have a bad headache, dizzyness and bad memory usually.

the second one is Kat (I named her myself, since i don't feel a name for her and I don't like calling her 'the girl', but if she tells me otherwise i'll definitely change that idk). when i'm her i also have the foggyness and everything like i have with Brian. i also have major changes in what my interests are. so things i usually find uninteresting i'm suddenly obsessed with and i get this strange urge to get my life in order. when I'm her I always feel like I can do anything, and that the world is beautiful, eventhough I usually feel the complete opposite.

the third one is Rose, who is about 5. This 'mood' is so weird, it's like i experience everything for the first time and I have no worries and i want to cuddle with everyone I see (which is unlike me, because i'm extremely touch repulsed and I just can't handle cuddles). i feel like i can't do anything on my own and i need people to take care of me. the weirdest thing about this is how i see my brother. my brother is about 3 years younger than me, and when i suddenly change to being 5 i can't wrap my head around him being 17. it's like he suddenly had a bear and he suddenly is taller than me and he has a low voice and i just don't understand and i get so confused by it because he's supposed to be little.

lastly there is just me. i have these moments where i realise i'm just me and then everything just fits for some reason. i'll recognise myself in the mirror and i can think clearly and i can see much better and the colours are more bright. i can feel my own feelings so much more intensely, instead of feeling like i'm empathising with someone else. i suddenly love the things i care about and dislike the things i dislike and it's so freeing for some reason.

i also have blackouts during which i don't know who i am. also, i have these thought that aren't mine the sometimes pop up in my head. about two weeks ago i started to write witht hem, but it's still very hard to do. The thoughts are how i found out about Rose, since her thoughts sound very different than my thoughts, when i asked her who she was i got this very clear image of her in my head and i cound hear her name, so that's how i know her name and her age. for Brian i one time felt his presence in my head. i couldn't sleep and suddenly i felt like i wasn't in control of my body and there was this presence in my head that didn't want me to notice him, but when i focused i could feel a name and a location, which was very weird at that moment. then later when writing with him i found out that he's a bit older than me and he confirmed his name being Brian.

And also the changes between these different moods sometimes goes really fast, like it only lasts 5 minutes at a time, or it can last up to days. when i switch moods i also sometimes lose my headache or foggyness, or suddenly gain it vey strongly.

Does this sound like having alters or fragments or is this just my head/personality being weird?

(If anyone has any tips on how to bring up the subject of hearing voices/having other people in my head to my T, advice would very much be apreciated )

It sounds like switching to me we don't get blackouts often. In the past before I knew about DID I would have described it as like stepping into a different skin but it's more like a different me steps into the body.

My memory is fairly continuous but if someone else was fronting there memories will often fade a little after they step out. Occasionally I have blackouts then it feels like I was off while someone else was here (my place is in the body not the inside.)

When I'm Z I'm emotionless and like to study and observe and analyse people, plan for potential future threats.

When I'm Nixie everything is new and scary (well most things she is getting better) she likes the dogs and not people. She struggles to talk and often wants to hide and not be seen.

ZuZu is obsessed with being big and strong but in the way a small child would be. And wants to do everything herself but is super clumsy and struggles with things.

I've not got a clear idea of who Pixie is anymore she has changed drastically recently.

Anyway back to the point when we take about switching we mean that will usually feel like we are coconscious. So I always stay in the body and sometimes when the others step in it will feel like I am me but someone is here with me. Sometimes it will feel like I am observing them in the body. Sometimes it will feel like I am me but I will act like them and it's only after they leave that I was them or they were me (I'm not really sure.)

Sometimes I get turned off (again I don't really know how that happens.) and I can only assume a switch occurred or as I know Z used to do it when we were kids maybe she is switching off the body, but Ozalces doesn't comment on us not being present so I don't think it's that (I asked him to check.)

We also have what I will call passive influences. So sometimes we will feel compelled to do something or that we need to do something. But we won't be aware of anothers influence or have an understanding why we have the compulsion.

i obviously can't diagnose you or anything, and i'd strongly suggest you discuss this with your new T and keep your options open, so to speak. there's a lot of crossover between conditions like BPD / (C)PTSD / OSDD / DID with regards to this kind of thing and it can be confusing to navigate it.

i don't black-out when a switch happens, though there is a degree of amnesia. it's like i went to "sleep" and had a "dream" (in which the dream was whatever happened while one of the others was out) and woke up with a vague understanding of what happened but it's incredibly hard to remember and it doesn't seem real. we still need to leave notes for each other and do back-tracking to figure out what happened while someone else was at the front. the degree of amnesia lessens a lot if we're co-conscious but it can get very messy (it feels like i'm being blended with someone else and it can make it confusing about who is who or what it means to be "me" anymore and it's very uncomfortable).

passive influence is something we get often too. one example is i have moments where i'll see the body and get dysphoria and i'll know that's jones, because i'm actually very comfortable with the body in that regard so i'll know it wasn't my feeling, and since he's expressed those feelings to me/others before i know it's his feeling. even if i'm still fronting, if i bind the chest that feeling goes away and i don't mind doing it even if for me there's no need, it's not uncomfortable for me so i do it for his sake even if he's not fronting, since it seems to help in some way.

i guess to us it's more like we're all in a car, and i'm near-permanently in the driver's seat as that's my "role", but other people can sit in the passenger seat and do things like play music, or directly try to move the wheel, or even stop the car. or they can sit in the back-seat and quietly influence things from back there. or they can be the driver and i'm the one in the passenger / back-seat. that seems to describe how it feels the best.

as for how to bring it up with your T, i'd be careful about wording. maybe write stuff down in advance to bring with you. make sure to reserve judgment and not jump into things too quickly, equally hold your ground and make sure your symptoms are being acknowledged. it took me a long time to admit things to my T and we only truly started working on things under a "this is likely DID" basis 9/10 months in to our sessions, it took a long time for it to be clear to either of us what was actually going on.

i hope things with your new T go well.

Thanks for your replies.

I think I recognize a lot of what you said so thanks for that I guess. Also for the past couple of hours I felt a bit weird like not really me, but also not really Kat, but I didn't really think that much of it. But then I was writing on another post on this forum and I went to sign my post with Liz like I usually do, and in my head I heard this happy voice yelling 'AND KAT', so that was weird and has never happened before and now I'm really aware of her in my head. It's like she's not really active, but she's just sitting there on my right looking at what i'm doing and feeling happy. also, my headache just got 10 times worse and idk if that has anything to do with anything.


about my T situation, I decided with my friend that I shouldn't tell my old T, because there is really no point to it and it makes me feel very unsafe. this does make me/us? a bit more nervous for my new T thought. I really hope everything goes well with that next week..

Liz&Kat

Good luck with them I hope it goes well