Quote:
Originally Posted by AlwaysChanging2
The only thing that I can figure about switching for different aspects of life is we all lived in fear and terror, we were beat into submission for so long that we lived as an empty shell well into the 20's. Anytime we tried a new activity like sports, band, color guard, we were criticized, put down, and made to feel worthless by parents. 18 years of this.
When trying something new, I'd dissociate out of fear of trying, being criticized, and failing, then another would step up and take on the new activity, coping skill, situation,....We all learned a different skill set. Even today, if something unfamiliar takes place that is scary to me or an other, another would have to emerge to handle it. Happy to be alive was beat out of us.
We really didn't pull it together till we were in our mid 30's. We came across as not having any real personality because we started so late in life learning and living. We were stunted. As a new alter emerged to learn a new skill, each came across as naive and emotionally stunted that we were open to ridicule both publicly and privately which even caused more dissociation to escape the hazing.
This is the why we are so fragmented. Even thinking about it today makes me sad. Sad for us to have endured such a messed up childhood...and now adulthood.  |
what you said resonates with me. as much as i feel like i spent most my life dissociated, i always did exist somewhere among them all to some degree, even a tiny one...but a lot of the years were spent like yours where it seemed to be more of...nothing...no one....except at the same time, it was a lot of internal 'living' with the external and internal worlds colliding quite often and overlapping symptoms of other things.
also like you, well, for me, it was in my mid 20s, i started becoming more 'me' and less whoever, whenever.
i also understand the fear of trying and being criticized or not being good at something...that has followed me my entire life as well which feeds into other things i struggle with in regard to anxiety and not being able to do certain things a lot of the time unless things are calm enough to be able to without as much emotional/internal harm if something is triggered.