What does it feel like to have DID/MPD

I'm curious to know what it feels like and if it is pleasant/unpleasant because I sort of feel like I have MPD but I'm not sure.

It feels normal. I have had it for forty plus years before I was diagnosed. If you think you may be DID you should talk with a therapist.

I don't know about anyone else, but for a minute I think it's okay, but for the next 24 hours, I think it sux.

To be one is a dream, the rest is a nightmare.

So it doesn't feel like something is wrong or that you need help?

How is it a nightmare?

I thought everyone had the cross talk in their head. I thought that everyone would become someone different depending on the situation. It wasn't until I wasn't able to stop certain behaviors and at times was able to see myself doing stuff that I said I wouldn't do. My system was breaking down and parts were everywhere. I was telling a friend and she said I was dissociating. I Googled it and there I was. All of us. The diagnosis was a relief at first because it meant that I wasn't losing my mind but going forward it was often very hard to accept.

Thanks for the insight. Best of wishes to you!

if you think you may have DID you should contact a treatment provider in your off line location. there are diagnostic tests that can be done that can tell you whether you have it or not. please dont base whether you have it or not according to what you read online. it affects people differently....and there are many different mental physical and normal things that can cause the same dissociative like symptoms...

let me show you what I mean....

one person with the disorder may hear voices. another person with the disorder may not hear voices.one person who hears voices may be diagnosed with DID but another person who hears the same type of voices may get the diagnosis of bipolar disorder....

theres alot that goes in to being DID so the only real way you will know whether you have it is by contacting a treatment provider.

now for your question what does it feel like. it feels normal and it feels traumatic/painful. DID is a mental disorder that happens to children under the age of 5 when they have been extremely traumatized...

sometimes for me it felt like getting abused in the most horrific ways and other times it felt like nothing, just normal. ....it felt many different ways depending upon many factors.

Living a fragmented life is not a dream that I would like to have. I feel like a pile of puzzle pieces with missing pieces.

Does it feel traumatizing cus you were actually traumatized or do the personalities traumatized you?

first a warning...this post may be a bit triggering in order for me to answer the posters question....

DID is a mental disorder that is created in children when children under the age of 5 (according to my states statistics on mental disorders) undergo extreme mental, physical and sexual abuse.

the answer is both... I was emotionally, physically and sexually abused, and forced to do things that children should never have to do, in a mine shaft.

as a person with DID those trauma's dissociated into creating alternate personalities who job, purpose, reason for being was to be the ones being abused so that I would not remember those abuses thereby ensuring my survival. I also had alternate personalities that had the job, purpose, reason for being was to ensure I did not tell what was happening to me at all costs, including actions of self harm suicide and acting out the abuses that had happened to cause me to become DID.

when I did finally remember what had happened to me that caused me to dissociate to the extreme of my mind unconsciously creating alternate personalities it was like going through those emotional, physical and sexual abuses. when ever I attempted to talk about this with treatment providers I would end up in the hospital due to extreme self harm, suicide, and those alters who's job purpose reason for being was sex would seek out abuse related sexual partners, situations including acting them out on their own if needed. this was not limited to times when I was alone. this was something that permeated my whole life time and permeated every aspect of my life (memories, perception, behavioral, occupational, sense of sense of self, sense of agency, affect, motor skills...you name it...having these alters and going through the extreme abuses affected everything about who I am and what I could and couldnt do before my alters integrated with me.

after integration it was even more so traumatic because my mind was one whole person again I had all that was the alters including the physical and emotional pain of the trauma's I went through and remembering the trauma's (suicide, self harm violence...) was inflicted on me in the name of keeping the secrets

here is where you can read more about what DID is and how having alternate personalities affects a person with DID.....

http://forums.psychcentral.com/disso...s-dsm-5-a.html

Even when i was a child i felt like something was very wrong with me that made me dofferent from my friends. I must didnt know what to call it. In a lot of ways, i thought being different peope and losing time and drifting away from my body and seeing through a long tunnel and hearing voices was just normal. And yet i also knew i needed to keep it a secret,somehow. As i became a teenager i kept looking for reasons to explain how i was- i looked into astral projection, schizophrenia, etc. I felt crazy. I scared myself a lot. On the other hand, it was also all that I knew, it took until i was in my thirties to get officially diagnosed.

I think it's the way the mind copes, and can go "unrealized" for so very long.

First time I saw professional (less than year ago - yes new here.) She had all these forms to fill out before - I wrote out family's medical/mental history (scary & traumatic just to write out!), and wrote my mind was "very compartmentalized."

Morning of visit I freaked, and circled highly compartmentalized memory, and added I knew my mind protected itself, but I needed to heal. Put down DID question since I knew she had experience with it, and I experienced it with other family members. But never thought me.....

Yet it explained so many things in my life that never made sense.....

From my point of view it protected you...or sometimes you just check-out....

Yes, the other day I was forced to recall a trauma moment, and I did it before running to pick up my partner at the store. I had to search for the memory because it's locked up somewhere, and I found it, and I wished I never did, because I had a breakdown and kept trying to depersonalize driving down the freeway, crying..I was fighting it all the way. Later that night I cut my arms all up and ended up in the hospital for a few weeks.

That trauma is back under lock and key, and I couldn't tell you what it was today. For sanity sake, we just don't go there.

I grew up with PTSD, a shell of a person. Soon personalities were stepping up to fill in the blanks. Each alter has a function, a job to do. They have their own special coping mechanism to life. When a situation requires another talent, then that alter will step up. I always thought I was a great thinker because I utilize both the right brain and the left brain, but thinking about it, that only pertained to the alter present. Parts of me is creative and artistic while other parts follow a logical thinking process. I can do a large variety of differing things. One moment I'm an interior designer, then later an accountant- sure everyone does that (which I hear so often), but I feel like two different people with different attitudes and eyes.

Things magically move around. I've almost gotten used to it, but not so quite, lol.

Okay I understand your guys's pain and struggles but at some point you need to embrace who you are. Being able to use both halves of the brain is very important and is a good things since you balance out. Just love your differences from other ppl. May be easier said than done but it's necessary!

no offense but many times I haveheard the phrases ...you just got to get over it sometime....you need to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and accept it and move on....when are you going to get over it.....and yes the phrasing in your post .....I understand your guys's pain and struggles but at some point you need to embrace who you are.....

but what people need to understand is its not that easy as deciding to get over it, accept it, accept who you are, pick up and move on.....

Example most people with DID are in therapy for more than 10 years. it takes a lot of work....learning grounding, breathing, developing co consciousness (if thats possible sometimes it isnt which makes the healing process langer) developing communication (if thats possible, sometimes it isnt so again this can cause the healing process to take longer) trauma work (stabilizing their daily life, learning the therapy techniques to help them not dissociate while working on the traumatic events like DBT, CBT, EMDR, IFS, medications for things like depresison, anxiety, PTSD....) theres years and years of therapy work that goes into healing/integration with DID. there is no quick cure of pick yourself up by the boot straps, accept it, get over it...

a little tip for those who want to know how the brain works the part of the brain that is reactive when someone feels triggered is the amygdala which is not in the right or left side of the brain. its part of the brain stem low and centered. it is this part of the brain along with three or more other parts of the brain that is used when dissociating when triggered....here is a great link on this ...

Limbic System: Amygdala (Section 4, Chapter 6) Neuroscience Online: An Electronic Textbook for the Neurosciences | Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy - The University of Texas Medical School at Houston
Amygdala (Definition, Function, Location)

I was saying right brain/left brain functions. A least when I was in school at the time the left brain harbored logical thinking and the right brain dealt with creativity, but I'm sure brainology has come along way since then.

I've been embracing my uniqueness for over 45 years. But ultimately this has stopped me from hitting my full potential leaving me struggling on a day by day basis. I wish "I just can get over it" like I hear so many times.

I asked my doctor about therapy for DID. Said it was a lot of work...many sessions a week. Then told first I needed to get to a more stable point to deal with such things since it's a such difficult process.

Thank you oh wise one. I never knew...

that's the problem, when people hear the truth they catch an attitude or feel some type of way. Just let it soak in and use the knowledge to help yourself and others.. That's all IM tryna do

Hey sweety your Kewl. I'm just a rebel at heart! Lol. Been there done that. Appreciate your efforts.

What are you experiencing that makes you wonder if you have DID?

Going from super talkative and energetic to super irritated and wanting to keep to myself. Idk I think it might be bipolar disorder but someone said something about getting chills when they switched alters and I've been getting chills down my whole body ever since my psychotic break and as a kid I got lots of headaches idk thought these could be more than coincidences

thanks on clarifying what you are going through... if you were here in my location these would not be symptoms nor diagnostic criteria for having DID.

here they would be symptoms and diagnostics for things like medical problems (a cold, flu, ....) or depending on other accompanying symptoms things like normal, age related problems , or mood disorders, depression...

here in my location there is no documentation that getting chills is part of the switching process...short version here dissociation (the switching process) is things like the one doing the switching feels triggered, or numb, spacy, disconnected from their self or others.

going on just the moods of one minute being talkative/energetic and the next irritated is in the category of being normal here where I live and work, human beings normally do show many different moods and the human brain does allow a person to feel and show many different moods depending upon what is going on in their life, their health and those they are around.

one thing you need to know is that trying to figure out whether you have DID or any other mental disorder online in forum boards like this is that one person may have mood swings and they are diagnosed DID where as another person with the same exact problem may be diagnosed as schizophrenic or depression or even not have any mental disorders at all. there is no way to tell who is who and who really has what and whether someone is posting some misleading information to disguise their problems so their family and friends wont recognize them here should they locate this site. Add to that this site has many different countries with many different standards of what is and isnt a mental disorder symptom \diagnostic criteria. So for example if you live in america and trying to go by the standards in india (throwing out any old random top of the head place) you could be self diagnosing yourself drastically wrong and causing yourself more problems.

the best thing to do when anyone thinks they have a mental disorder is contact a treatment provider in their own locations, this way they will know based on their own problems, their own locations standards whether they have a mental disorder or not. please dont continue to go the self diagnosing route. I know someone who is now dead from brain cancer which was treatable. if they hadnt been trying to self diagnose and going according to what people online were telling them they would be alive today. there are many different mental physical and normal problems that share the same symptoms\problems. its best to contact your treatment providers before you do yourself more harm.

There are some very specific symptoms for DID that a therapist or psychologist could evaluate in your specific situation. Certainly, changeable moods can be part of it, but they could indicate a lot of other conditions as well.

What I am learning is that whatever is going on, you can feel better, with support and tools.
Hang in there.