Questions About DID

1) Do you ever experience yourself as more than one personality at the same time?

2) Do you ever experience yourself as having changed dramatically from one point of time to another when what really happened is you changed personalities? So, I guess... a confusion of identity?

3) Can some alters be subject to a (distinct) mental illness which others do not have? For instance, a delusional disorder?

4) Can mind-altering drugs bring you into contact with other personalities that you wouldn't normally be aware of?

Thanks.

For 1 and 2 I would personally say no. I am me and they are them. I can experience them close to me, but we are also always separate people.

We have several people here with various mental illnesses that do not affect all of us. It's not uncommon in people with DID to have this happen.

As far as mind-altering drugs bringing us closer, I don't think there is a definitive way to answer that. I mean, they are after all "mind altering". So one could not ever know for sure that the closeness was related to the drug or that it was not closeness at all so much as a side-effect of the drug itself.

-Leigh

Questions 1 and 4 were kind of related as in once I smoked weed and experienced myself as many people. Weed isn't generally that psychedelic for people so it made me wonder. I only experimented a few times with it and have sworn it off completely now, especially since I had a psychotic episode. I can't say for sure if I was many people or just in the presence of many other personalities. Anyway, I was talking and laughing with myself and I just felt like there were many many people inside of here.

I haven't given DID too much thought for myself but I do have serious memory problems. I can't remember anything at all about most of my childhood. I have very few long term memories. BTW, these problems existed before any drug use occurred. I'll also think about some pattern in my life- some phobia or some characteristic and then I will have a vague recollection of another time that seemed to contradict that phobia completely and I wonder how it is that I could have changed so much. But maybe its just that- change- and not DID related.

I have experienced the flooding back of repressed memory.
I had a psychotic break that seemed to be heavily tied to repressed memories. I had a conversation with someone in which I felt threatened, somehow I quickly suppressed that conversation. And then as it came back a few months later, I was unsure about what had been said and I spiralled into psychosis. I also finally told my partner that I had been abused shortly before the psychosis hit. After the psychosis, I just don't deal with the abuse. I brush it off like it was nothing and better left in the past.

I feel like I am seriously rambling.

1) Do you ever experience yourself as more than one personality at the same time?
Nope, we can be co-conscious, but we know who we are separately, we don't blend as one
2) Do you ever experience yourself as having changed dramatically from one point of time to another when what really happened is you changed personalities? So, I guess... a confusion of identity?
Nope, I'm me and they are them
3) Can some alters be subject to a (distinct) mental illness which others do not have? For instance, a delusional disorder?
yep - as leigh said, same with my system
4) Can mind-altering drugs bring you into contact with other personalities that you wouldn't normally be aware of?
er... dunno really, same as Leigh said

J_Zombeenie wrote:Do you ever experience yourself as more than one personality at the same time?

Yes. What I experience may not technically be DID at all. Basically, there is a 'host' personality, and he may hear any number of voices in his head, but it's usually silence. He also has extensive amnesia. The others are more like external entities that he becomes possessed by. Depending on the degree of control, his mannerisms may change, and he may even think he is that person. If the situation calls for it, he may get pushed to the back while the alter takes control. But he's almost always there, so he's always two people at once.

2) Do you ever experience yourself as having changed dramatically from one point of time to another when what really happened is you changed personalities? So, I guess... a confusion of identity?

Yes. But now that I understand what's going on, I don't take these changes as seriously. I'll try to figure out who is trying to take over, rather than drop everything, declare, "THIS is who I am," and move to another city or something. I also don't take it as seriously if I suddenly start liking a different gender or something.
But yeah, that was EXTREMELY confusing when I was a child. When Dul manifested, she tried to (literally) cover up my masculine identity. She would ALWAYS wear a shirt with sleeves, even when swimming. She let her hair grow out (which doesn't look very feminine even when it's long), never showed any skin (slept in shirt, jeans, and sometimes shoes), and never showed any kind of aggression.
Next came Kevin, an EXTREMELY gay male who had the same hang-ups as Dul, except that Dul was actually a lesbian (we didn't know). When I came in 2002, we had already lost the ones before Dul, so I assumed we were the only ones. I was attracted to men out of a need to balance out the femininity in my head, but I couldn't stand the sight of a penis. So I guess I was sort of a compromise between Dul and Kevin.

3) Can some alters be subject to a (distinct) mental illness which others do not have? For instance, a delusional disorder?

I don't see why not. There'd be no point in a separate diagnosis, but knowing their individual struggles is invaluable. For example, Ravin and Charlie have textbook BPD. Leonardo has social anxiety. Kevin is Schizoid, so he'll rarely manifest in social situations unless I piss him off. Some of us have sexual phobias. The host has severe emetephobia and is physically unable to vomit. He's also very paranoid. Dul, on the other hand, has virtually no problems at all.

4) Can mind-altering drugs bring you into contact with other personalities that you wouldn't normally be aware of?

It makes sense. Letting your guard down via benzodiazepines, MDMA, or even SSRIs will make it harder to resist their voices. I actually met Dul and Charlie for the first time this way. I was taking Adderall for the first time, convinced that it was going to give me complete peace of mind, self-confidence, and self-acceptance.
I looked at the clock, knowing it took about an hour to kick in, and said to myself, it will kick in at xx:xx. Well, sure enough, it did. And suddenly I felt this courage and empathy I had never felt before. Everything was beautiful, like the sun had just risen for the first time. I know amphetamines can cause euphoria, but this was a little over the top. Then I got HORRIBLY depressed and stopped taking it for several months.
Next semester, I went back to it, this time being on Zoloft as well. The euphoria was gone and I was actually a little agitated, but three weeks prior to this, I had made a promise that I was going to give up my fear and surrender to the gods, or the universe, or whatever. I was taking a swimming class because I've always been afraid of water. One day, I could suddenly breathe. I just gave it up and plunged myself to the bottom of the pool. Later that day, I started having these thoughts and I knew I wasn't myself, so I started writing them out. I called myself "Z," and wrote a letter to my other self, who I called "R." We had several exchanges, and I learned a lot from them.
But now that the fear was gone, others started coming out. One was a heterosexual male, and another was a feminine entity that was also attracted to women. The heterosexual took over for a long time, and I noticed that when we were both there at the same time, I smelled differently, and could swear I was growing hair in places that were hairless before.
It was so gradual that I didn't suspect DID. I've always talked to myself, and I've always gotten answers. But next semester, there were times when I'd be sitting in class or something, and Kevin would come over me like a tidal wave. I was suddenly extremely gay, extremely aroused (awkward), and very limp everywhere else.

ALL THAT from a study drug. I'd hate to see what kind of cracks Xanax would make in my mental mirror.

1) Do you ever experience yourself as more than one personality at the same time?

Sometimes we might blend together, like today, when I couldn't distinguish Nadine's voice from Thinker's, and everything was chaotic for some reason. Although I might not experience more than one at once, I might be influenced by more than one. If that makes any sense.

2) Do you ever experience yourself as having changed dramatically from one point of time to another when what really happened is you changed personalities? So, I guess... a confusion of identity?

If you mean skips in time, then yes. Sometimes one of them might creep up and take over without me noticing, and here I am thinking it was me the whole time.

3) Can some alters be subject to a (distinct) mental illness which others do not have? For instance, a delusional disorder?

I can see that happening in some people, but it doesn't in me. Two of them are asexual, but that's not really a disease.

4) Can mind-altering drugs bring you into contact with other personalities that you wouldn't normally be aware of?

They could be curious and surface while you're high. Either that, or maybe it's just because you were high. If you think you have the symptoms of DID, get yourself checked.

All of these responses have been invaluable to me. I really appreciate.
Grey Kameleon, you made me remember another forgotten episode on pot when I started feeling very feminine and talking as a woman. I remember saying something like "I have been dying to get out." And your talk about swimming made me remember how I have been alternately terrified and and in love with the water at times.

I also have a thing about driving. I don't drive except for very short, familiar routes and I have excruciating trouble learning and remembering new routes. It makes me very fearful of driving in general. I would rather do without than risk a new route. But then I can remember driving considerable distance to a casino on a whim. Can't begin to comprehend how I got there now. And once when I got into a fight with my partner, I just took off for Florida. Have no connections there. Didn't get far as I had a breakdown, but still... I can't fathom what at this time just seems like sheer bravery, not to mention knowing how to get there.

And then there is my sense of smell. I consider myself to have anosmia. But I can count on probably one hand a number of times when I got a smell of something. Recently it was burnt popcorn. I have had things burn in the oven with my back turned at the kitchen table and not known about it until I have seen the smoke wafting by. Common occurrence. I have certainly encountered burnt popcorn before. But only recently smelled it? Its very weird. And I have a memory that was once repressed for many years in which I was yelling emotionally "I can't smell anything." and there was some trouble hinging on something that might have been smelled, but I needed someone to believe that I didn't. I'm inclined not to say a great deal about this.

I've worked a few jobs where I'll come in and do what I was supposed to do regularly, but one day it will hit me out of the blue that I don't know what is going on (jobwise). Like I've been out on vacation for awhile. Its an awful feeling.

I don't know if any of this is forming a pattern or if it all just peculiar in its own way.