Quote:
Originally Posted by ensconce
I am bipolar but there is something peculiar about me that I was wondering if some of you could give me some information about. Since I was pretty young I have had approximately 4 different people in my head that I would become depending on the situation. I didn't really notice very well until I was older. The transformation has always been more subtle in public with me suppressing certain features of these people as much as I can. Sometimes some of them seem to go away for a while, if I am especially distracted or if I dont encounter situations where they are needed but usually one in particular creeps back in, other times he begins to take control especially when I hear or see certain things, he loves fear it seems to make him thrive. There are also times when he takes over and I have to fight for control again. I was abused physically and emotionally until around the age of 18 or 19 I cant remember most of my childhood either because certain worse things happened, maybe that caused it.
My main questions are:
- whether anyone has alters that fight for control of you
- whether anyone alters that lay dormant until certain situations arise to the point to where you think they may be gone permanently.
- Would it be possible for the paranoia from a bipolar episode to trigger the emergence of an alter to cope with the perceived threat.
- Do you notice the switch each time? or do they happen on their own sometimes without you noticing.
If anyone can help me with anything I would really appreciate it. Thanks for reading all of this  |
a bit of information....
dissociation is a reaction to a trigger. what that means is when someone encounters something they can not handle whether its positive or negative they start having dissociative symptoms (feeling numb, spaced out, foggy minded, disconnected from their self , their environment or both)
these are perfectly normal reactions to have and can happen with any mental physical or normal situations.
from there the dissociative symptoms move into the various dissociative disorders. what america recognizes as dissociative disorders are in my link at the bottom of my post.
thats the basics of dissociation.
now for your questions..
normally what happens is alternate personalities are created in children under the age of 5 (my locations statistics/demographics) from that moment on during childhood and on into adulthood and on up to the point where the alters all integrate (become one whole person again) any time that person with dissociative type alters gets triggered, they dissociate and an alter just automatically takes over control of the body to take care of what the triggered one cant handle.
the fighting for control usually happens as part of the healing process where once the alters /body born person (which ever way it happens for for each person) have learned how to control their triggers and reactions/grounding.
example when ever I was depressed/suicidal my alter rainy would take over control and handle those things that was triggering me to feel this way. she was the alter that contained my sadness, depression and suicidal thoughts. but after I learned how to handle being depressed, sad and handle those depressive sad times in my life and use my grounding skills. there was a bit of a fight of my staying in the present moment (not dissociating) and Rainy trying to do her job, purpose reason for being which was to handle those situations for me. over time and as I continued to heal and handle those situations on my own Rainy was no longer needed to take care of those situations, the result was she merged together with me to become one whole person again.
no they did not lay dormant to where I felt they were gone. dissociative type alters do not leave, go away or die off, thats one of the distinctions between alters induced by other mental disorders and other physical health problems. they affect a persons life in every aspect of their lives according to when and how that person gets triggered and dissociates. I knew my alters were permanently no longer taking control when everything they were became me ie when i had rainys memories, mannerisms, language, thoughts, everything that rainy was became me. thats when I knew I would permanently no longer be dissociating into becoming rainy. there was no need to everything she was, became me.
any mental disorder has the possibility of creating alternate personalities. but bipolar (psychosis, paranoia, delusions, hallucinatory)created alternate personalities are not the same as dissociative type alternate personalities. the treatment for bipolar related psychosis, paranoia, delusions, hallucinations will make this type of alter go away, come back go away come back depending upon whether the meds are working, what dosage and such related to bipolar disorder. this is how my treatment providers were able to tell whether my problem was bipolar related or dissociative related.
I was not co conscious with a majority of my dissociative type alters so I did not know when they took control or not. but because DID is a dissociative disorder I learned how to tell when they were going to take control based on what my triggers were that caused me to dissociate and knowing which alternate personalities job, purpose, reason for being was to handle that trigger...
example if I started feeling sad, depressed, suicidal, needing to cry I knew that if I didnt use my grounding and other therapeutic skills I learned in therapy then rainy was going to take control and handle those situations for me because thats what her job, purpose, reason for being created was,
my suggestion is if you think you are having alternate personality problems contact your treatment providers. they can assess what the problem is and tell you directly related to you and your problems whether you have DID,OSDD (the only dissociative disorders that have alternate personalities recognized in the USA other locations may have others they recognize) andget you on the right treatment for it so that you will soon start feeling better.