Ethan the Alien's Misadventures! [Journey Thread!]

Back again.
I'm still confused about what you're trying to explain? The way you've said everything makes it sound like I'm not already diagnosed or something? Or that I'm not "really" experiencing rapid switching, etc. when I'm high? It's just the way you're phrasing everything makes me feel a bit frustrated, like I am being spoken to like I don't know things, I'm sorry ^^' I have already been diagnosed with DID for over a year now, I don't understand what you're trying to explain with "Some disorders can cause symptoms similar to what we experience when intoxicated by certain substances. This is why in mental health manuals it's often stated "the symptoms are not caused by any substance" in the diagnosis criteria." like.. Okay..? I'm diagnosed with DID..? And I genuinely was rapid switching..? It also feels like you're making this out to be like it's a common thing that I just show up to therapy high, which is just.. No? Like you kind of seem to be under the impression that I'm not diagnosed with DID and I need to tell her when I'm high so she can make sure to not misdiagnose me?? I'm not showing up to therapy high all the time? That was literally ONE time, and it was an accident? I didn't tell her that I was high because she needs to "assess what's normal and what isn't" or something, I told her I was high because I wanted to make it known, because I was rapid switching and had such drastic personality changes that I needed to make it known to her? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but that's how I've been reading your responses, which is why I'm confused. That therapy session was actually very important, as it has started to make alters within the system start to feel more comfortable with being known, and making themselves known.

But anyways.
Therapy is still going really well.
I had an idea about 2 weeks ago to try and write down a note to "myself" in therapy sessions, at the end of each session, and then my therapist keeps it, and then "I" "respond" to it during the next session, and then so on and so forth.
We actually ended up figuring out what alter has been fronting a lot lately, which made me really happy.

I'm also getting oral surgery done tomorrow, I'm getting my wisdom teeth out. I'll be asleep for it, and I actually always prefer it that way, it's easier and quicker for me. I've been under before, and I woke up crying (which is common, of course), and then later in the car, on the way home, I'm pretty sure a child alter ended up fronting, since I started to act and speak like a child. I'm really interested to know what happens tomorrow after the surgery.

ethanthealien wrote:Back again.
I'm still confused about what you're trying to explain? The way you've said everything makes it sound like I'm not already diagnosed or something? Or that I'm not "really" experiencing rapid switching, etc. when I'm high? It's just the way you're phrasing everything makes me feel a bit frustrated, like I am being spoken to like I don't know things, I'm sorry ^^'

Sorry sorry! I was rambling and infodumping all over the place. You DO experience rapid switching under the influence but it's not your "regular" state, that's what I meant. Sorry for being confusing!

Sorry if I sounded like I meant that you don't dissociate or stuff like that. I realize now re-reading the conversation that I infodumped so much it drowned what I meant in the middle of it. Now I want to crawl in a bush and hide because I feel silly. ^^;

Sorry again for confusing you with my infodumping.

__
I'm happy that therapy has been helpful lately! Good luck for the surgery. Anesthesia does funky things to me too, it's always a surprise.

It's okay, I appreciate the explanation, thank you! I understand now!

-- Sat Mar 02, 2024 2:06 pm --

On a side note, I had to reschedule that oral surgery, but at least it isn't far, just on March 7th now.

But I'm so upset and I think my health has just been getting worse and worse. The sharp pain in my ribs is pretty much always present and it always hurts a lot. My digestive issues have just gotten worse and worse and nothing is helping. I can't eat. I feel like I've truly just hit the bottom of the barrel. I literally cannot eat anything. My stomach can tolerate bread and like oatmeal I guess, but that's about it. I've been dealing with these digestive issues for like 2-3 years now and I can't do anything about it. I can't find a dietician. I needed a neurologist for my foot/leg problems, but there was not a single neurologist that takes my insurance within a 100 mile radius. I mean that very literally. I still have to wait months upon months JUST to MAKE AN APPOINTMENT for an upper endoscopy. I don't have to wait months until I get tested, I have to wait months just to set an appointment to get tested. But I feel like I am dying slowly, and have been for these past 2-3 years now, since all of this started. I don't know what to do anymore. I feel so helpless and hopeless. I was at the ER the other day because I was desperately hoping they could do SOMETHING, but they obviously couldn't. Just a blood draw, which wasn't what I needed. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what to do. I'm so desperate. I CAN'T EAT ANYTHING. I LITERALLY CAN'T EAT. No matter what I eat, it always causes worse symptoms. I can't do anything about this except wait. And wait. And wait. I feel like eating isn't worth it. What's the point when nothing I eat gets digested and nothing I eat makes anything feel better. I feel like I would rather just starve and that would be healthier for my body than eating anything, because everything I eat only makes everything worse. I can't do this.. My body has slowly been getting worse and worse and worse and worse over time, by the second, and all I can do is wait and hope that it doesn't reach emergency levels of severity.

A lot happened today ("today", it's almost 1am). I'm not sure if I have to put a trigger warning for anything.

So I actually had to reschedule that oral surgery and it was today ("today"), and uhhh.

They couldn't continue with it because while I was asleep under the anesthesia, they told me that apparently my whole body like scrunched up and I was saying (I don't know if I was yelling or what?) "help me help me!" and something about my throat or something restricting my breathing, so I essentially like stopped breathing and they had to wake me up immediately. I don't remember any of that, because I was asleep during all of it, so I wouldn't remember all that, I only remember them waking me and I remember that I had a dream about playing Splatoon (one of my main autistic special interests) next to my partner at our house, and when I woke up I actually forgot that I was at the oral surgeon and not home.
And when I woke up, one of the doctors asked me "Who is (partner's name)?" (I guess I said her name while I was under?) and I had to explain that they are my partner and they are trans and not out to their family yet, so I had to explain not to call them (their name) around her mom (in case her mom was going to be with me while they were here) and I'm honestly extremely lucky and privileged to be in one of the much more safer states in the U.S. when it comes to trans rights and whatnot, I'm thankful they were not transphobic and actually completely understood, it seemed.
I ended up crying a bit and talking about how much I love my partner and how she's basically saved my life and stuff and honestly? Ultimate form of love. Do you even really love your partner if you don't wake up from anesthesia and cry about how much you love them? (joking).

I had no idea I had the bad reaction to the anesthesia until one of the doctors came back and had to explain.

When I first had this appointment, like for the consultation, they asked me if I had any mental health conditions, and I refrained from saying, because obviously people don't really take kindly to saying you have DID - you never know who doesn't believe it exists, who's going to be rude about it, etc.
And I have been under anesthesia before, at this exact same place, so I didn't think that it would like. Be something I would need to mention, since, although I woke up crying the last time I was asleep for oral surgery, (also a child alter ended up fronting later in the car on the way home, but I didn't know it at the time), I didn't have any kind of reaction like this. It was also a time where I was much, much, much more in denial of my DID and unaware of it, and I think I only really had this reaction BECAUSE I am so much more aware now.

But anyways, I did end up telling the doctor that I do have DID and PTSD and if that could be a cause and they said that the kind of reaction I had was EXTREMELY rare, like to a point where they told me that the only other times they had patients with this kind of reaction were other people with PTSD, so they said it made sense and also explained that that was extremely important to mention, like I could have.. Died. But like I said, I.. Didn't know I was going to have that reaction, and I have been under before at this same place and it was fine, so I was like surely I'm not going to have a bad reaction (famous last words).

But anyways yeah they couldn't do the surgery, so they have to call back in a few days and set an appointment for a different hospital so that I could have a breathing tube while I'm under so that this doesn't happen again.

Lots of stuff to talk about with my therapist.

Wow, a few different things I wanna update

I'm officially diagnosed with fibromyalgia! I've suspected it for a while and I feel really happy and validated to have it confirmed! It was diagnosed last Wednesday!
Other than that, not a whole lot has been happening - I've been in a dissociated state for a good few weeks now where I felt really disconnected from "Ethan" and everything that "is" "Ethan."
To be clear, Ethan is not the name of One specific alter. I just felt like I was entering a new era of my life. Really disconnected from DID and my DID as a whole.
I've slowly been starting to come back and feel more interested in DID again now, though. I say interested because taking about DID and researching it and whatnot is like a special interest of mine, not quite sure how to phrase it. But it's a huge interest/hobby of mine, so it's very noticeably different if I'm not in a state where I'm interested in DID topics.
I also haven't been less interested in Splatoon, which is a video game that is another one of our special interests. I haven't been playing it at all while I've been in this state, so that's a noticeable difference as well.

Congratulations on the diagnosis!

I totally understand the feeling of having "learning about your psy conditions" as a specific interest. I have that, too. I found it helpful in managing my health because it motivates me to learn more about how to manage my condition and get better. And also to better understand why this or that treatment plan will work or not, depending on how up-to-date the therapist is about the treatments.

Regarding anesthesia, I know that ketamines do not agree well with people who has a tendency to dissociate such as trauma survivors, ADHD people, autistic people... You do not have to say full-on DID, you can just say "trauma survivor with intense dissociative episodes" and that's enough. That's what I told the anesthesis before my march gender transition surgery: "I'm autistic and I have ADHD which means I dissociate a lot to manage hyperactivity and sensory overload. Moreover gender dysphoria makes me depersonnalize a lot and I have had intense derealization episodes when taking Nefopram for the pain so, go easy on the ketamines please." And the anesthesist told me not to worry because they have other molecules they can use and they'll also make sure to give me local morphine injections before the general anesthesia so they can go even easier on the heavy anesthetics.

All of this to say, you do not have to say it's DID. You can say it's DP/DR and c-PTSD. Same family of condition, less stigma.

I'm not diagnosed with autism or ADHD, just self-diagnosed! Well ADHD I'm not sure of; I used to self-diagnose with it, but I just don't know anymore. I do think I do have ADHD on top of everything else though, I'm just not as confident about it as I am my autism.
I've actually been wanting to get an ADHD diagnosis, and I called a place that is going to call me back sometime to schedule for an assessment, but they said my insurance wouldn't cover the assessment, so when they call me next, I have to ask how much it is. I don't think I'm going to be able to get assessed, I'm fairly confident it's just going to be too expensive.
I'm 100% confident that I am autistic and I don't care about getting it diagnosed, simply because I can't imagine it providing me any benefits overall other than validation, but I figured if I was going to get ADHD diagnosed, might as well also get the autism diagnosed. And I only care about an ADHD diagnosis for medication.
And I realized as well that it wouldn't even be helpful anyways because I.. can't access medication.. I have to pay out of pocket because some stupid issue with my stupid insurance that I haven't been able to fix for YEARS now. And ADHD meds are too expensive to be able to just pay out of pocket. So I called my insurance again yesterday and they said I have to go to my state office or something to get it fixed, so now I have to do that. And I'm worried it won't go anywhere. If they don't fix this issue with my insurance, then I don't even know what to do.

And it's true I could just tell them about C-PTSD and dissociative episodes (though I can't say C-PTSD because it isn't a diagnosis here), but...
I wrote out a bunch of stuff, but essentially: I overthink it and I don't know if PTSD is actually written down in my chart as a diagnosis. I'll ask my therapist next time I see her.
I think I'm fine just telling doctors about my DID when or if it's relevant - I just overthink stuff. I'm way too privileged to worry about any stigma, honestly, I have yet to have a horrid experience with a doctor (granted I haven't really met many doctors at all) and it's really only because I'm white and live in honestly one of the best states in the entire U.S., in my opinion. So I'm thankful for that. I'll keep it in mind though!

I don't know how it is in your country but in mine I don't need to have official papers when I tell informations about my health. I don't have the official ADHD papers, I don't have official coeliac disease papers, but I got all the symptoms and the tools used to manage ADHD and coeliac disease are super helpful for me when I use them.

If you want to be careful about it for insurance and papers reasons you can describe the main autistic and ADHD traits you have (e.g. for me it would be the sensory processing issues, verbal processing delay and emotional hypersensitivities leading to an hypersensitivity to trauma and dissociation - and for coeliac, I get constipated, intestinal pain, skin issues, emotional distress and have trouble absorbing specific nutriments if I eat gluten, due to the overall inflammatory response).

Because you have privilege in some areas of life, it does not make you immune to discrimination in other aeas of life Makes it less bad but they still exist. And you have the right to fight against those. Because some have it worse, does not mean you have neglect your own needs and wounds. Because if we always wait for "the ones who have it worse" to get better, nobody never ever gets better because you'll always find somebody who have it worse. Even if only because, as DID-ers, we tend to minimize our own issues.

Oh no no I know. I'm just saying that I am not concerned about discrimination or stigma. I'm not neglecting my own needs or anything? I am fine telling doctors and such about my DID diagnosis, it's just anxiety-inducing. Of course I can very much still face stigma and discrimination, my main point is just that that isn't really my fear. I really only worry about what people will say to me if I tell them. I'm not trying to say other people have it worse or something? I don't know how to explain, but I'm not saying I will never face stigma, discrimination; I'm not neglected my needs, and I'm not saying I have nothing to worry about and other people have it worse?

Thanks for clarifying! Glad to know that you are on the chill side rather than the minimizing side of the Force.