[Claritytoo]

When I was 33 I had a car accident that resulted in brain injury that kept me out of work for 7 months. I have recovered with the exception of short memory. My family and friends all said I changed after the accident. Also my neatly compartmentalized memory was turned into a junk draw, where it is now difficult to recover memories quickly. After talking to my t I have started to wonder if it is possible that my DID is the result of my traumatic car accident. My question is would I develop alters that are young girls about 3 years, another young girl about 5 and another strong male 16 years old. Most of my other alters are older. So is it possible to develop alters that are younger than when the traumatic event occurred????? I would appreciate any insight.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by Claritytoo

When I was 33 I had a car accident that resulted in brain injury that kept me out of work for 7 months. I have recovered with the exception of short memory. My family and friends all said I changed after the accident. Also my neatly compartmentalized memory was turned into a junk draw, where it is now difficult to recover memories quickly. After talking to my t I have started to wonder if it is possible that my DID is the result of my traumatic car accident. My question is would I develop alters that are young girls about 3 years, another young girl about 5 and another strong male 16 years old. Most of my other alters are older. So is it possible to develop alters that are younger than when the traumatic event occurred????? I would appreciate any insight.

here where I live and work (NY USA) it is believed DID is created with children under the age of 5 who go through extreme abuse trauma. the mental health community here where I live and work do not believe adults create DID type alters.

So if you were here in ny usa the answer would be no alters are not created by an adult in a car accident.

can alters be formed before experiencing abuse?

since here where I live and work, it is believed the extreme trauma is what causes the DID, again the answer would be no. that would be like saying you can melt ice cubes before you have even frozen them. the water must be frozen before you can melt it.

can alters associated with DID be aged younger than when the abuse happens?

yes everyones internal system is set up how ever they needed it to survive their childhood...

that means alters can be young, old, animalistic or any other ways in which would ensure the host/cores survival. if you read the posts here you will find many different ways in which members alters present their self, some are birds, some are bears, some are cat like, some are dog like, some are young some are old, some are even book and movie characters..

other locations, treatment providers,....may believe differently. this is just what is believed here where I live and work.

that said...

if you are asking me if its possible that ***you*** have a younger alter only you and your treatment providers can say what and how your internal system of alters is set up.

[Claritytoo]

Thank you amandalouise for responding to my question. After to talking with my t I started to wonder if my DID could have happened from a car accident. A lot of my friends said I was different after the accident. I had severe migraines for two years after the accident than they stopped. I also have issues with my short term memory. What used to be a very organized way of retrieving memories has sense become a junk draw, which makes it more difficult for me to find the memory I need. Before the accident my memory was compartmentalized like mail slots at the post office. Now my memories are in a big pile that takes time to sort through. My little ones have been with me from when I was four years old. The others came along to help me as we grew up. I am finding out I know very little about how alters come into being. I was different after the accident, the mother to my son seemed to be asleep and I was trying to figure things out by myself. That is how it seemed at the time and even now when I look back. I appreciate your insight. It helps me to sort things out. Thanks.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by Claritytoo

Thank you amandalouise for responding to my question. After to talking with my t I started to wonder if my DID could have happened from a car accident. A lot of my friends said I was different after the accident. I had severe migraines for two years after the accident than they stopped. I also have issues with my short term memory. What used to be a very organized way of retrieving memories has sense become a junk draw, which makes it more difficult for me to find the memory I need. Before the accident my memory was compartmentalized like mail slots at the post office. Now my memories are in a big pile that takes time to sort through. My little ones have been with me from when I was four years old. The others came along to help me as we grew up. I am finding out I know very little about how alters come into being. I was different after the accident, the mother to my son seemed to be asleep and I was trying to figure things out by myself. That is how it seemed at the time and even now when I look back. I appreciate your insight. It helps me to sort things out. Thanks.

glad to help. Sometimes brain damage can ****mimic**** having the same symptoms of mental disorders like DID. kind of like sleep deprived person will have the same symptoms of someone who has depression or DID.

I would have been very surprised if after your car accident you remained the same as you were before it. trauma and stress of car accidents will mess up someones thinking, short term/long term memory problems and can cause life long headaches, body aches and migraines..

keep working with your treatment providers, they will know how to best help you to feel better and regain some if not all of those jumbled up memories depending upon what brain damage was sustained in the accident.

Claritytoo, I guess that thing I would ask you is if you were "different" or struggling in regard to mental health issues before you had the car accident? If things changed or seemed different to those around you after the car accident and you were connected and fine before the accident, I'd definitely investigate how the accident impaceted your brain functioning following the car accident. Brain trauma is a difficult thing to understand because we are still in our infancy in regard to understanding the brain and it's functioning. If you're a person who likes to read, you might want to get Seigal's book "MINDSIGHT". It's a great book that addresses brain structure and trauma in a very understandable way. Good luck~

[Claritytoo]

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

Claritytoo, I guess that thing I would ask you is if you were "different" or struggling in regard to mental health issues before you had the car accident? If things changed or seemed different to those around you after the car accident and you were connected and fine before the accident, I'd definitely investigate how the accident impaceted your brain functioning following the car accident. Brain trauma is a difficult thing to understand because we are still in our infancy in regard to understanding the brain and it's functioning. If you're a person who likes to read, you might want to get Seigal's book "MINDSIGHT". It's a great book that addresses brain structure and trauma in a very understandable way. Good luck~

I was having difficulty with issues that I, at the time, didn't attribute to mental health. Prior to the accident I had been having difficulty in relationships. I was physically aggressive to the point where my partner would become uncomfortable. But I would still continue. I could sometimes see myself while engaged in sex. When that would happen I would feel a moment of fear and than my head would clear, like a pop, and I would be disoriented. I also had times when I would be acting like a b****. Someone I didn't know. I would try to stop myself but all I could do was watch. I could hear myself talk. Not like it was me but like I was listening to someone else, only it was me. I was aware of a little me to my left, two girls in the dark, my anger, and my rage. My anger and rage were both protectors. At least that is how I new them. After the car accident I was mentally numb, I couldn't remember names, people, tasks, time of day and what day it was. It took seven months to get back to work. I now have short term memory loss that I attribute to the accident. I started therapy a few years ago because I saw myself while having sex with my partner. A friend said that behavior was dissociative. Prior to that I had spent years reading about different types of mental illness trying to find the one that best described my experiences. I looked up dissociative and found it fit my experiences in the most comprehensive manor. There is bi polar disorder, depression, anxiety disorder, alcoholism, in my family history. I have anxiety and have had times when I was depressed. But I was never depressed for more than two weeks tops and that only happened once. I used drugs and alcohol but did not become addicted. I stopped using drugs when I was 21 and stopped and still drink socially without excess. I never have had high highs or low lows. The thoughts/voices are in my head. I have never heard thoughts/voices from outside my head. I grew up in an extremely violent environment. What I think now is I might have created others to help each other through my childhood when I was young and maybe stirred everything up with the car accident. Right now I am still unsure as to wither I created alters after my car accident or wither they have all been with me since before my accident. As I write this I am also realizing that I don't remember a lot of my mid to late thirties. I appreciate your interest and hope I answered your question. Take care

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

From what research I have done, typical ages for those who develop DID are between the ages of 4 and 6 when the initial split happens, that as you age it becomes nearly impossible to split (unless you already have before), if possible at all. I'm pretty sure the criteria does say that you have to be of a certain age, and last I saw it was 4-6 but that was some odd years ago and the criteria changes every year it seems.

Anyways, I'm not a t at all obviously, with my messed up own mind, but do you have a t you can share these concerns with?

If you have DID and it seems that you changed after the accident it could be similar to what my t says happens with me. My system is very guarded. When things seem to be in order, going smoothly, I'm 100% normal and functioning on my own. But when things go out of whack, so does my system and I switch more frequently. Unfortunately in my case the dissociating happens more than not dissociating episodes but at least I get ocassional breaks in between right?

Anyways, I was in a gnarly accident a couple of years ago that caused PTSD and since the accident my dissociation has gotten much more extreme. Although in between the difficult times, I would have a couple of months out of the year when life calmed and I felt "normal" it's been at its peak since the accident. Although I've had many traumatic events since the accident, but what's new with life right?

So t says that since my system is so guarded and I'm apparently this "gate keeper" that basically keeps the peace, that when things are going smoothly everyone backs off, but when things get bad, when my feelings get distorted, my parts want to come out to take what they think I can't handle.

So what I'm getting at basically is if you have DID (have you been diagnosed with it? I can't remember right now sorry, it's been a long day/week/month/year) perhaps the reason it's becoming much more noticeable now, many more episodes, is perhaps the mental AND physical trauma you experienced during the accident triggered the parts?

But again I'm no doctor, I've just seen a lot of them lol.

If you have a t I would really recommend bringing this up with him, he can help shed some light on the topic.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by PurpleFlyingMonkeys

From what research I have done, typical ages for those who develop DID are between the ages of 4 and 6 when the initial split happens, that as you age it becomes nearly impossible to split (unless you already have before), if possible at all. I'm pretty sure the criteria does say that you have to be of a certain age, and last I saw it was 4-6 but that was some odd years ago and the criteria changes every year it seems.

Anyways, I'm not a t at all obviously, with my messed up own mind, but do you have a t you can share these concerns with?

If you have DID and it seems that you changed after the accident it could be similar to what my t says happens with me. My system is very guarded. When things seem to be in order, going smoothly, I'm 100% normal and functioning on my own. But when things go out of whack, so does my system and I switch more frequently. Unfortunately in my case the dissociating happens more than not dissociating episodes but at least I get ocassional breaks in between right?

Anyways, I was in a gnarly accident a couple of years ago that caused PTSD and since the accident my dissociation has gotten much more extreme. Although in between the difficult times, I would have a couple of months out of the year when life calmed and I felt "normal" it's been at its peak since the accident. Although I've had many traumatic events since the accident, but what's new with life right?

So t says that since my system is so guarded and I'm apparently this "gate keeper" that basically keeps the peace, that when things are going smoothly everyone backs off, but when things get bad, when my feelings get distorted, my parts want to come out to take what they think I can't handle.

So what I'm getting at basically is if you have DID (have you been diagnosed with it? I can't remember right now sorry, it's been a long day/week/month/year) perhaps the reason it's becoming much more noticeable now, many more episodes, is perhaps the mental AND physical trauma you experienced during the accident triggered the parts?

But again I'm no doctor, I've just seen a lot of them lol.

If you have a t I would really recommend bringing this up with him, he can help shed some light on the topic.

Originally Posted by PurpleFlyingMonkeys

I'm pretty sure the criteria does say that you have to be of a certain age,

No there is no diagnostic criteria that says a person has to be a certain age. you can find the diagnostic criteria for DID on the DSM 5 website site.

it is just a documented situation where in "studies" ***most if not all ****cases of DID in the United States that have been documented have had the similarity that they have had extreme trauma before the age of 5. kind of like saying 95 out of 100 dentists prefer crest tooth paste. it doesnt mean its a hard fact or criteria. just that someone somewhere decided to put together demographics that fit their parameters being used for the study or thesis paper. who's to say those people who have done these "studies" and thesis papers didnt weed out those with DID that were older than what those studies say because that wasnt their focus point.

Im sure if we looked around hard enough we will find others who seem to have DID that split at other ages then what all those studies and thesis papers say. in fact there is a client here at the crisis center where I live and work who has been diagnosed DID and to date she was 10 yrs old when she became DID. its rare for this kind of thing to happen but apparently in this case it did.

here in NY USA we typically go according to the Diagnostic criteria as stated on the DSM 5 website which lists the diagnostics for both the present standards and the soon to be incoming diagnostics, and we keep in mind the ***theory*** that the first split probably happened before the age of 5,, but we recognize it may have happened after that too, because the diagnostic criteria does not have age limits in it.

[jax01]

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but I'll say it anyway.
Traumatic head injury can cause radical changes in personality.
Likes, dislikes, what kind of foods you like, all can be changed by significant head trauma.
Doesn't nessearilly have to be severe, or life threatening. But it can't be just a little bump on the knot either.
As others have said, the kind of splitting that causes DID happens in early childhood. But that dosen't mean a traumatic event or time of great stress can't cause the symptoms of DID to become hard to ignore, and reveal itself.
Coping with chronic pain and the stress chronic illness creates drove my Dissociation back to as bad as they were when I was a kid. I thought I had put it all behind me. And so, I wouldn't have to deal with it. I may have been wrong about that, but it doesn't matter as it's all worse than it ever was before. So , no choice. Gotta deal with it.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by jax01

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but I'll say it anyway.
Traumatic head injury can cause radical changes in personality.
Likes, dislikes, what kind of foods you like, all can be changed by significant head trauma.
Doesn't nessearilly have to be severe, or life threatening. But it can't be just a little bump on the knot either.
As others have said, the kind of splitting that causes DID happens in early childhood. But that dosen't mean a traumatic event or time of great stress can't cause the symptoms of DID to become hard to ignore, and reveal itself.
Coping with chronic pain and the stress chronic illness creates drove my Dissociation back to as bad as they were when I was a kid. I thought I had put it all behind me. And so, I wouldn't have to deal with it. I may have been wrong about that, but it doesn't matter as it's all worse than it ever was before. So , no choice. Gotta deal with it.

Yes here where I live and work it is believed that many many mental and physical health problems carry the same symptoms that come with dissociative disorders including DID. its one of the reasons why the diagnostic criteria for DID is that all other mental and physical health problems that can cause the same symptoms must be ruled out.

yup we have to deal with what ever was served up to us in this diner of life. no you were not wrong about how you chose to deal with your problems, you just dealt with them with what ever tools you had available at the time you needed some help. now you are learning new ways to deal with your problems.

keep up the good work.