My Support Forums - View Single Post

PurpleFlyingMonkeys · Dec 28, 2011, 07:41 AM

I don't know how far you have come with all of this but I can tell you my experience. I was diagnosed with all 3 of the terms you are saying. But I was diagnosed bipolar 1, schizophrenic and DID. It's extremely difficult to distinguish between the three which are causing the symptoms. What basically happens with me though is I go through phases. I have weeks to months where I am full of energy very motivated and I have to move. I feel like if I don't move forward I will explode. Then it crashes and I'm pure lazy. Don't want to get out of bed, slow moving, just don't want to do anything at all but sleep. This would be the bipolar from what the docs have told me. I really think it's just my mind gets overloaded with all of the constant going that it needs a break so I crash for a bit. Whatever word you wanna call it, that's what the "bipolar" does to me for the most part. It also causes mild hallucinations and such but I'm just now learning more about that part.

As far as the schizophrenic part goes, it comes in phases. For most of my child hood I remember the paranoia and the hallucinations all the time. Eventually it passed and things got normal for a bit. Then it started to come in phases. Shortly after I start stressing over one thing or another it triggers the schizophrenia and I become dilusional I hallucinate in every way imaginable it seems and get very paranoid.

With the DID though, the phases are much different. The don't effect me during every moment of my life during that phase. I go through dissociative phases as well when stressors get to be more than I can handle. I start to feel like I'm not connected to my body multiple times throughout the day. Like I'm there looking at me, but I can't control what I'm looking at. Basically as if my mind and my body are two different unconnected things. This happens and often it progresses from this stage to feeling like I'm being pulled away. It's always hard to explain but imagine this. You're wearing ear muffs and you're sitting in a chair with wheels on it. Someone behind you grabs the chair and pulls you really fast backward. Everything in front of you, the room you were in is getting further and further away. Everything around you sounds muffled and you can't understand it. This is another thing I experience, only I don't move like the chair being pulled backward. My body is still there but it feels like I'm a mile away. Then it can progress even further. That's when everything goes black for me. I don't even realize time has passed until I realize I'm in a completely different place doing something I normally wouldn't be doing.

Then another phase, as I described about with feeling like you are not connected to your body... I've also experienced watching my body do and say things I didn't want or plan to say. I also experience depersonalization where I will be sitting in a room watching myself interact with other people from the other side of the room. That was nuts. But that is not technically a DID only thing.

But I also have many phases where I look in the mirror and don't recognize myself. I have times where I feel like I can do anything and everything, I'm spontaneous courageous and outgoing. Then I have times where I'm really shy reserved and a control freak. This is most likely the bipolar issue.

With feeling like you're not yourself, I have that as well but I do think in my case it's due to the DID. But in your case it could be any number of things really. As a child I used to talk with an english accent (I'm from the US) and I did it unthinkingly but I more so did it because I wasn't happy with my own life at the time. I was I guess in my mind trying to change who I was so I didn't have to face my real life. I escaped into my own fantasy of being from another country with a wonderful family being here only for a short while on vacation. I did this when I was alone. I wouldn't even realize I was doing it sometimes.

Telling your doctor of these things wont make them send you to the hospital. It will help them look at things differently and sometimes that's what you need. It's when you become dilusional or a threat to yourself or society that they consider hospitalizing someone.

Your treatment providers would be better than anyone to help you determine what is going on. They know the minor differences between the disorders and they would be the best at determining what you have. I wouldn't say that you do have DID, but really I wouldn't say that you don't because I too often feel like someone else, feel as if I never lived the life this body lived, and that is a result of my DID. BUT that could be a symptom any number of things. Like with hallucinations. Bipolar and schizophrenia can have hallucinations. They can vary for both. But a key in schizophrenia is dillusions and a key in bipolar is mania. So treatment providers can determine differences such as these and others if you can be honest and open with them in what you are experiencing.

I was afraid to tell other doctors and t's of my DID dx but nothing bad EVER came from it other than the doctors who didn't believe it and just made my acceptance of it that much harder. They wont institutionalize you because you think you may have it, and they shouldn't. Unless you are afraid for yourself or others from your actions, you really don't need to be in the hospital. Perhaps increase your visits with your therapist if you have one?

I wish you the best, I know how confusing everything can be, please take care of yourself and be as honest as you can be with your therapists. You pay them to help you. That's what they should be doing but they have to know how to help you first. Take care! Sorry I wrote so long, I do that... Sorry