Journey Thread (progress report)

Hi

This Is Kit. The system seems to have got its act together a bit more! I'm not sure exactly what's happened but I've returned feeling more like an 'I' and that I understand why the other alters have come about over the years.

I'm still not entirely sure its DID in the traditional sense just because of how the system seems to work. The seperate parts don't seem to believe they have another life elsewhere or that they are someone of a complete different sex or race to the body and all answered to the legal name and recognised the body as theirs when they were up front.

Nevertheless there is obviously dissociation there and I know its common for people with autism to have dissociation much longer than NT kids an not so unusual for it to persist into aduIthood

I suspect some of that is because we were told when young never to tell others about 'our secret world' or 'imaginary friends' (as my mother believed they were at the time),so we honoured this like her dying wish that we must always keep after she passed when we were still young. So we've never revealed it to any 'professional' in the health care field even when we were diagnosed with autism and was in the unit for months)...so therefore NEVER had any treatment specifically aimed at dissociation.

Anyway recently reading about Selective Mutism and the symptoms (many of which overlap with autism) and some life stories of other non dissociative people who have grown up with SM I can see stuff like how/why Thea evolved (from our own life experience up to that point) why 'Maddie' chose AAC due to the connection with the deaf world waning even back then but still needing a solution where needing speak would trigger panic and used the experience of the neuro symptoms and misdiagnosis to validify a reason for needing it (as the system was still totally unaware SM was part of the reason for the creation of the alters at the time).

Now I've understood all this and talked to others online with SM (some also with autism) some who also use sign and AAC or write things down in situations when they can't speak, some who can hear but also struggle to understand speech (Auditory processing Disorder) or also have sensory issues and can still only speak to select people and/or pets. I feel I understand 'me'.

For me I don't feel Thea or Maddie will come back now because they filled a gap and performed a function when I did not understand 'me', when I knew what I wanted but I didn't know how I could achieve it or why this intense wave of fear would literally paralyze me if I felt anyone was watching me or expected me to speak.

I see now after reading of people with SM only (undiagnosed for years) still living with their parents in their 30's/40's and still needing them to speak for them to all strangers, how the dissociation and the autism combined ENABLED me, allowing me to create persona's/alters that enabled me to have a way to communicate with the outside world independently, even if it meant doing that as 'someone else' I managed to move away from home, go to residential college, experience work and uni and live independently.

All things considered I think I did rather well! ...with only the one major breakdown and 9 months in a specialist unit in 50+ yrs and considering I didn't understand why the hell things were happening for most of it!

The long isolation with no pressure to be anything other than myself has definitely helped me to understand my brain and how its worked to helped me survive.

I just thought I'd post this incase anyone is ever in a similar situation and finds themselves on this board, reads this post and thinks 'that's me!' Hopefully it may help someone else in the future.

I feel I'll be more able to go back out into the world in the near future (after this pandemic is over, I still really do have immune system issues which mean I'd be seriously ill if someone passed covid onto me unknowingly) and I really don't want to have to start again from the beginning after just reaching the point where I feel I can go out in the world 'as myself' again.

Kit

The thing I love about this board is I'm always learning!!! Just when I thought I'd learnt everything I needed to know,someone else's post will highlight something that had never occurred to me!

I'm open to the idea there maybe others 'on the inside' that I don't know about and who may not want to be 'exposed' to the outside world or even want a name or any kind of acknowledgment that they existed (even if they did).

The general feeling coming across in the mind is 'why can't we take what we've learnt about autism and DID but still go back to operating under the system we used to have before we knew the body had them?

I don't know if any others of you on here have gone back to being able to work as a 'singleton' after you knew you had several others living within?

Significant health issues and now the pandemic enforcing further isolation has significantly changed our life and immediate future as I'm sure it will have done for many others.

The neighbouring area has a local lockdown and ours is on the list of next areas possible for local lockdowns if numbers rise further' I (Kit) have gone into prepping/survival mode, trying to get in enough food in incase delivery slots get scarce again,items get limited/prices rise etc.

We've no idea how bad it will be at xmas, whether we will see family xmas day? or even whether we will still HAVE family left by xmas day! (They are keyworkers and still having to go out to work, potentially exposing themselves to asymptomatic others).

If anything can drive everyone (within our system) to finally come together for the sake and survival of the body surely this is the situation!!