New here

I have never been to a therapist but I am starting to wonder if I am DID or DDNOS.

Until a few months ago if you asked me about my childhood the only information I could really give you is stuff that happened at school. I thought it was normal to not have childhood memories and thought those that could say they remember being 4 years old were either weird or repeating stories they were told about their childhood.

I'm female, in my early 30s, mother of three, and married to a guy who is abusive. Things have changed in my life this past year and I left him! Then I came back and things were better but now they aren't great.

In trying to figure out how I could have allowed myself into an abusive marriage and stayed in it for 12 years, I had to start looking into my past for answers. Problem is, I didn't have a past. I couldn't tell you about my homelife, what my parents marriage was like, what happened to me as a kid, any of it. I had a few fragments:

I hated my father.
I slept under my bed from the time I was 11 or 12.
My mother slapped me across the face a lot.
I didn't like being touched.
I had flashbacks that would bring on such terror that would be ready to snap from the emotional strain only to forget what just happened or what I just remembered- like someone stole away the fear.

This led to a lot of soul searching to heal from domestic violence. One of my searches led me to website about codependency and discovering your inner child. I did the exercises. I imagined I went back to my house where I grew up and found me as a child. That I hugged the child and told her I was going to take care of her from now on. That she was safe.

The next month was rough- flashbacks and nightmares were horrible. I remembered so much from when I was little. I could remember being sexually abused by my father and others since the age of 3.

Then I got to "meet" someone else inside my head. She's 12 and angry.

So far I am up to 17 "people in my head". It explains a lot. The voices I hear sometimes that I always dismissed as active imagination. It explains the years I spent visiting neurologists who couldn't diagnos me with epilepsy despite the seizure like things that happen to me. They couldn't explain the memory loss, the weird things I do.

The neurologist eventually labled me as multiple sclerosis but was always asking questions about my past and my childhood. Asking about abuse. I denied all of it. I was telling the truth. I didn't know.

Now I know and I don't have MS, I have conversion disorder.

It's not that I didn't remember my childhood, it is that other parts of me are hiding away the memories.

I need to see a shrink about this but I'm scared. I'm happy to have found this forum and know that I'm not alone on this journey.

While I'm here I guess I should add more.

The first inner child I found was 4. Her name is Molly.
Then a 12 year old angry girl appeared. Bridget.
Next came 14 year old Jill. Very quiet and passive, came to find out she is the one that got me through high school- the one that could appear normal despite what I had gone through the night before. She explained a lot of things to me. Then Jill introduced me to others.
The scariest one of all was Alice. 15 and suicidal. She lives at the bottom of a wishing well.

It was at this point I started going into the woods in my dreams. A field and some trees- beautiful like out of a picture book. There I would talk to Molly, Bridget and Jill. That is where the well was where I could look down and see Alice.

I am guessing the woods are what I see others say about the garden.

Then came the memories of Alice... and with them came the return of Michael. I still don't know what he is but when I get suicidal, he always appears. I have since gotten to know him well and he explained to me that he is the one that makes the splits. I don't know how it works but he is the one that gets "self" (host) to split. Then he showed me ways to protect myself in the woods and how to protect the others.

Bridget has a 12 year old twin sister named Amy. They were born of the same change in abuse. Then there was mention that the 12 year olds were triplets. I asked where the third one was and was told "it is part of self."

I feel like a nut job typing this stuff out but I guess if anyone can understand it people here can.

So then I found out that Jill is Alice's twin but they are triplets. The third sister of that group is nameless and is engulfed in flames. You can't touch her, she doesn't speak- she just burns. They were all born out of when my father started to carry me to the crawlspace of the basement to abuse me. I still can't tell you what happened in that basement, only that it hurt and Alice and the one in flames hold the memories.

Then the early memories started coming in- I could remember floating out my window to the stars when I was tiny and seeing a little girl and monster in my bed. I was safe though, in the stars. Michael explained that this is how he kept me safe.

More came. There is an 8 year old that has no words of her own. She just screams out the things father use to say. She hates the words but can't stop repeating them.

Then a 10 year old boy showed up. He is covered in scars and his eyes glow red.

A three year old girl named Matilda is around. She hangs out with Molly. She showed me her memories of horsey rides with daddy while mommy took baths.

Anyways, there are quite a few around. Some just do things I don't want to do- Maria is house keeper, Mistress Mariweather is my resident Mary Poppins that gets the kids in line when they need to get their rooms cleaned or homework done.

There are dark ones I haven't met yet. Jill said I'm not ready for them. Michael, whose name is now Azel, has more to show me before I can meet them.

I feel like I am living in a movie a lot, or that I am part of an inner narritive. There are times I stand beside myself and watch myself do things. There are times I wake up on the kitchen floor with no memory if the past few hours.

I hear voices sometimes but I have learned how to turn them off.

Azel tells me all of this was created so that I could live and now that I am in a safer place he can teach me how to control it and take it all down.

Personally I just feel like a nutjob for even admitting all of this anonymously on a forum. How could I ever talk to a psychologist about all this? They would put me in a straight jacket.

ashesoflife wrote:Personally I just feel like a nutjob for even admitting all of this anonymously on a forum. How could I ever talk to a psychologist about all this? They would put me in a straight jacket.

“'But I don’t want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can’t help that,' said the Cat. 'We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.'
'How do you know I’m mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,” said the Cat. 'or you wouldn’t have come here.'”
-Lewis Carroll

Sorry, I couldn't resist! My point is, everyone on this board respects DID and all the many ways it presents itself. You don't seem all that different from the others here on the board. And I don't say this to invalidate your experience, but to show you that you're definitely not alone. stick around. But I warn you, support can be addictive.

Thanks, it is nice to know I'm not the only one going through this.

Michael/Azel and Voice (the voice I hear but it really sounds like it is coming from outside- someone standing near me) have been with me since I can remember. The rest of it is scary.

Then Azel shows me memories of him trying to train me when I was 15, how to use the energy, how we made Alice.

It's weird, but does anyone else have an "other" in their head that teaches them how to work the system? He is a guide to the rest of it but says he is not part of me.

I'm crazy, so you have been warned, but he shows me how to control energy in the woods and how to make protective bubbles around the others. This is really hard to put into words. Then he had me put a glass jar with a screw off lid in the middle of the woods. It is where the others can put their bad memories and make them shut up.

I don't know, this all so hard to explain with words.

The dreams, the flashbacks, the woods filled with fragments of me.

That find your inner child thing I did found a lot more than one hidden child.

I guess I broke recently and openned pandora's box. The thing is, Azel shows me that I have openned the box before. He showed me how to open and close it. He is the one that made me forget everything again. According to him, this is the fourth time I have known the truth about "us" yet I don't know. I guess this is the only time I have tried to understand it. I wasn't ready before to accept it.

I don't think I am making any sense and should stop now.

I think you're making a lot of sense, ashesoflife, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

It's weird, but does anyone else have an "other" in their head that teaches them how to work the system? He is a guide to the rest of it but says he is not part of me.

If I remember correctly, Truddi Chase, the author of the book When Rabbit Howls had a part like this, it's in the book.
Welcome to the forum.

It's weird, but does anyone else have an "other" in their head that teaches them how to work the system? He is a guide to the rest of it but says he is not part of me.

This is a fairly common category of alter. Everybody's system is different and every alter is pretty much as unique as every person. I'd say you're very fortunate to have a part like this. He is a type of internal helper, though that is just descriptive, not a technical term agreed upon. If he controls who comes in and out, he would be called a gatekeeper (opens the gate to control of the body). I have a gatekeeper who is of the non-emotional, robotic type. At first he too told me he was "not of the body." He figured out in a few short weeks that he was wrong, he's actually an alter too, but a very different kind, more an objective structure than a personality. In his own way, he did "show me around." He knows facts and details, particularly about the body, that there is no way another part could possibly know. He knows the age when everything happened all the way back to age one. He will answer any question I pose but I call him the Sphinx because the answers I get are so mysterious or vague, I can barely sense the meaning.

Your system does sound not wildly unusual and your communication inside is quite good to have learned all that and to have spoken with your alters at this point. Alters who are burning or on fire is not uncommon either. In my readings this is sometimes due to a trauma where overwhelming pain was experienced, a pain similar to burning. An internal landscape is also not unusual, so you'll find others with woods, meadows, gardens and all sorts of structures to live in.

Thanks, it is nice to know I'm not the only one going through this.

Virtually every single person on this board are either going through something extremely similar themselves or they have a friend or significant other who is going through it. You're in great company.

But I warn you, support can be addictive.

Amen, sister!

Hi

Just saying hello and welcome and good on you for really taking the time to let your system tell you about them all. I'm sure it was a massive whirlwind of a time.

What I'm a bit unclear of, are you still living with the abusive person, or not? You got away but you went back? It's understandable why. If you grew up with abuse, even if you weren't aware of it, you typically gravitate towards what you know. If that is abuse unfortuantely you will unconsciously gravitate towards more abuse. Unless you become conscious of it and really make an effort not to.

Anyway, welcome, again

Bourbon

Hi Ashes of Life, so nice to meet you. I am a support person, I live with a man with DID. Just wanted to say, you don't sound like a nut job. The alters you describe sound just right, to the many experiences I've read about, and some that I live with as well.

You put it so eloquently, so very well written and descriptive. I found it to be quite emotional to read. Glad you found your way to the forum; you'll get lots of support here.

Thanks everyone! I feel safe here and it is so good to have other people that can understand what I am saying.

Johnny-Jack wrote:If he controls who comes in and out, he would be called a gatekeeper (opens the gate to control of the body). I have a gatekeeper who is of the non-emotional, robotic type. At first he too told me he was "not of the body."

As far as I can tell Azel knows how the system works but has no effect on it. He is here to teach me how to run it. If I had to lable someone as a gatekeeper right now, my money would be on Jill. Jill is a former shell/self, as is Amy.

According to Azel:

"The turtle has many parts. The parts work as a whole but not all parts are aware of each other yet some parts work together. You are self. You are the hard shell. You are what is presented to the world. You are hard and don't feel emotions. But like all turtles there is a head, and arms and legs, a tail, as well as all things contained in the shell like organs.

A shell must become aware of the other parts in order to lay the egg. The egg is the seed that Alice talks about. "echos, fragments, spirals spirals, fractured, hardened, all to protect the tiny seed of pure light.""

So according to Azel, I am a shell, I am the fourth shell, and it is my job to grow the seed.

Yeah, I'm confused too.

Wow, I have a part who talks kind of like that, uses metaphors that have been very confusing, but the more I've talked with him, the more his language is becoming easier to understand for me. He's learning how to speak my language to some extent. So keep talking!

Only you and Azel can determine what the exact meaning of his words are. They are beautiful metaphors, by the way. But I'll hazard some guesses.

It sounds like the shell he's talking about may be what most of us here refer to as the host, the alter (because every personality in DID is really an alter) who is in control of the body much or most or even all of the time. If shell = host, then you would be the fourth host. You might ask him what the egg is. Is it the core self, who was there before the damage/abuse caused the mind to create two separate parts? Is it the beginning of health? Cooperative existence of all the parts? Integration of all into one? The start of a future whole self?

Could the tiny seed of pure light be the original self, what some people refer to as the core -- the first and damaged alter or personality from whom the first separate alter emerged? What I refer to as my core, a one-year-old baby -- him I can see describing as the tiny seed of pure light. My Sphinx states flatly that the core must survive or the body cannot, as if this alter, Adam, is connected to the parts necessary for life (as linked to the spinal cord and brain) that must be preserved at all costs. But he also says that about my eleven-year-old. Interestingly, he isn't saying that about me or the others. Hrrrm.