[wastana0516]

Hi, so I guess I'll also be posting this in the Bipolar threads, since that's the diagnosis I was officially given, but I'm not sure it's actually BPI with psychosis, necessarily, because I've been struggling with dissociation and pretty marked depersonalization ever since I began trauma work two years ago. For most of my life I had no idea what was going on, just that people would say I said and did things I have no memory of doing, and I'm missing extensive gaps of my childhood...or else I have several different sets of memories but I can only access one set at a time. That probably doesn't make sense to most people, but I'm hoping people on this thread might be able to understand. It's like these memories all belong to different people...but they all belong to me. It's just that I'm different me's.

I know it's not DID because I'm conscious for these shifts, even though it sometimes feels like someone else has my body and I am speaking with someone else's voice...that probably doesn't make sense but it's the best way I can describe it. I figure my girlfriend (whom I live with) would let me know if I used different names or underwent drastic personality shifts. But something strange is going on because the more trauma work I did, the more I heard the voices. They weren't voices telling me to hurt myself or someone else, they were just voices -- different people talking over me, to each other. And of course when I was put on an antipsychotic, the voices didn't disappear, I just got better at identifying and communicating with them. Some of these voices are quite old and some are quite young. They didn't tell me their names, not exactly. I just knew their names? And sometimes I'd see them in dreams and know who they were...

As I'm writing this all out I am aware of how outlandish it sounds (I'm trying really hard not to say "crazy" because that can be a horrible word to hear when telling your story, so maybe I should go with neuroatypical? I dunno) but I guess I'm just hoping someone else out there relates. I've been doing a lot of internal family systems therapy both on my own and in therapy because these voices aren't going away, so the best I can do is work with them. They all have distinct wants and needs and I can't in good conscience ignore something that seems so fundamental to me. But I also worry that this is some sort of intricate delusion and I'm fuelling the fire.

In every other aspect of my life, I'm pretty stable. I'm happy, more or less, in school and taking my medication as prescribed. I still have panic attacks occasionally but that's more to do with the PTSD than anything. I keep thinking to myself that if these voices are the worst part of my day, then my life is pretty good, right? But I also notice how scared they get when I get too "close" to a topic or memory that's frightening to me/us and I'm starting to wonder if therapy just makes it worse and if I should just go back to pretending I never met them.

Anyway. Thanks for reading. I'm Avery, glad to be here.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by wastana0516

Hi, so I guess I'll also be posting this in the Bipolar threads, since that's the diagnosis I was officially given, but I'm not sure it's actually BPI with psychosis, necessarily, because I've been struggling with dissociation and pretty marked depersonalization ever since I began trauma work two years ago. For most of my life I had no idea what was going on, just that people would say I said and did things I have no memory of doing, and I'm missing extensive gaps of my childhood...or else I have several different sets of memories but I can only access one set at a time. That probably doesn't make sense to most people, but I'm hoping people on this thread might be able to understand. It's like these memories all belong to different people...but they all belong to me. It's just that I'm different me's.

I know it's not DID because I'm conscious for these shifts, even though it sometimes feels like someone else has my body and I am speaking with someone else's voice...that probably doesn't make sense but it's the best way I can describe it. I figure my girlfriend (whom I live with) would let me know if I used different names or underwent drastic personality shifts. But something strange is going on because the more trauma work I did, the more I heard the voices. They weren't voices telling me to hurt myself or someone else, they were just voices -- different people talking over me, to each other. And of course when I was put on an antipsychotic, the voices didn't disappear, I just got better at identifying and communicating with them. Some of these voices are quite old and some are quite young. They didn't tell me their names, not exactly. I just knew their names? And sometimes I'd see them in dreams and know who they were...

As I'm writing this all out I am aware of how outlandish it sounds (I'm trying really hard not to say "crazy" because that can be a horrible word to hear when telling your story, so maybe I should go with neuroatypical? I dunno) but I guess I'm just hoping someone else out there relates. I've been doing a lot of internal family systems therapy both on my own and in therapy because these voices aren't going away, so the best I can do is work with them. They all have distinct wants and needs and I can't in good conscience ignore something that seems so fundamental to me. But I also worry that this is some sort of intricate delusion and I'm fuelling the fire.

In every other aspect of my life, I'm pretty stable. I'm happy, more or less, in school and taking my medication as prescribed. I still have panic attacks occasionally but that's more to do with the PTSD than anything. I keep thinking to myself that if these voices are the worst part of my day, then my life is pretty good, right? But I also notice how scared they get when I get too "close" to a topic or memory that's frightening to me/us and I'm starting to wonder if therapy just makes it worse and if I should just go back to pretending I never met them.

Anyway. Thanks for reading. I'm Avery, glad to be here.

the only things I can tell you is that you are not alone, when I go through this my treatment providers call it by many different things depending upon what other accompanying symptoms I have, and mostly now it is called bipolar and psychosis in me, along with sometimes PTSD,depression, dissociative problems and even normal depending on the situation. along with many other issues with in me.

my suggestion is that since these problems do concern and frighten you, contact your treatment providers, sometimes just a change in my bipolar meds fixes the problem in me. your treatment providers will be able to assess what's going on with in you and tell you how to go about handling/fixing the problem so you wont have to live so concerned and frightened.

[wastana0516]

Originally Posted by amandalouise

the only things I can tell you is that you are not alone, when I go through this my treatment providers call it by many different things depending upon what other accompanying symptoms I have, and mostly now it is called bipolar and psychosis in me, along with sometimes PTSD,depression, dissociative problems and even normal depending on the situation. along with many other issues with in me.

my suggestion is that since these problems do concern and frighten you, contact your treatment providers, sometimes just a change in my bipolar meds fixes the problem in me. your treatment providers will be able to assess what's going on with in you and tell you how to go about handling/fixing the problem so you wont have to live so concerned and frightened.

Thank you so much for the response. I think I should discuss it with my psychiatrist and see what he thinks. It helps to know I'm not alone though. It's really easy to start thinking I'm the only one who's dealing with this and how even mentioning it will make it into a huge deal. Which is not to say it's not a big deal it's just that I don't want to end up in a hospital again when things are actually really good and I'm coping well. Does that make sense? Anyway, thank you for the kind words.