I think I might have DID

I thought the other people were just a delusion I made up, but my friend says I'm in denial and it isn't healthy. One of the people says that I'm an alter they used to talk to, that I'm new, but how can that be true when I thought I was the original? I just came out as lesbian and I really want to move on with my life and not have pretend people messing it up for me. I know they are all me and I just want to move on. But I keep slipping back and thinking I'm other people that aren't me, like being a gay man. I'm not interested in men!! I wasn't for my whole life until this started happening. I don't know what to do. I hate this.

there are many mental \ physical and normal things that can cause what you posted. just because a well meaning friend may say you have DID does not make it so. for example if you google the symptoms you posted you will find millions upon millions of results that this can be....

My suggestion relax, breath, and then contact a treatment provider ie medical doctor, therapist, psychiatrist. they will be able to get you through the diagnostic process for all the different mental, physical and normal things this could be and then get you into the right treatment program if needed. that is the only way you will know for sure what is going on with in you. plus its less stressful then friends self diagnosing you and possibly diagnosing you with the wrong things.

hi
i have just been sorting out this DID stuff myself. your confusions and talk of other people sounds like it could be DID but i am somewhat confused by your post without more information. i would like to try and help you sort things thru if you would like to talk about it more. i had different people talking to me for a long time and it was blown off by my therapist and not treated and i only got worse with my anxiety. i finally got with a therapist who specialized in DID and things have got much better for me. it is so important to have someone trained in the field. so after you have three posts you can click on my name and send me a private message so we can chat if you are interested in talking more.

Okay, sure.

Willowtrees and Kaliope,

Its just so hard to find a therapist or even a psychiatrist who specializes in DID. And I live in the Los Angeles area!! You'd think I'd have access to the best psychologists in the country, but that just isn't the case. I've even asked my therapist and spiritual counselor for referrals to anyone who works with DID, and they all told me they didn't know anyone. Sadly, I'm doing most of the legwork myself. I scored myself in the DSM, and came up positive for Borderline Personality Disorder and DID. In fact, I have my associates degree in business, but plan on going back for my bachelors degree in psychology. I want to become a therapist and major in psychology, because the lack of help out there is rediculous. Lol.

Anyway, I've found this forum to be quite helpful and 99% of the people on here to be very nice. Hope you find the answers you're looking for. If you ever want to talk I'm here for both of you :-)

Jen

PS. The fact that you think one of your alters is a gay man, but you came out as a lesbian, sounds like a piece of you still might be attracted to men, but you disassociated it for some reason. There might be some trauma in your life where a man hurt you or something? Unconsciously you decided you were done with men and repressed any feelings you have for them, thus creating a personality that express these feelings. At least that's a theory. I might be completely wrong.

I feel like it's the other way around. I think he is a gay man because I so desperately wanted to be normal, and be able to relate to and get along with men and find them attractive. I've had a lot of internalized stuff, so at the time he came around, anything would have been better to me than being a lesbian. But that's just how I feel right now, and I haven't talked about this in therapy.

One more thing... Here is where I scored myself in the DSM 5. The Colin A. Ross Institute

Hi, welcome to PC. From what I understand or read about alters, there isn't an original. We're all alters of the same system (or body). Each alter fronts up when their job or coping skill is required. The alter up front the most would be the "host alter". The host alter can switch out through your life. I've been here 45 years, and I've lived 7 different lives, so to speak.

I lived in denial for years...didn't want to acknowledge, pretend it's not real. It's always going to be there regardless of how the system feels. Are you in therapy hun? Can you talk to your alters? Work out a system plan? For instance, we don't do our own thing. We work for the body to further it on, to keep up a public image. Of course there are always those few that have different ideas but we keep them tied down. Good luck Hun and keep coming back

One thing I dont understand is, I didnt have alters as a kid. I went through abuse that probably made me dissociative, yes. But alters as their own distinct people didnt show up until I was 18, after a very traumatic event. So why cant there be an original for me? I understand structural dissociation. I just dont understand why its so set in stone.

you not having alters as a child isnot a diagnostic criteria per se, you see with DID there is something called co consciousness. this is having awareness of alters. some people are not aware that they have alters when they are children, example I never knew as a child my alters were there and that they were constantly taking over control. having co consciousness is not a requirement for having DID.

the basics of DID is that the alters are created in children under the age of 5 when the child undergoes extreme trauma (NY mental health demographics\statistics)

each persons internal system of alters is set up according to what that person and all inside needed to survive....

example because I was sexually abused as a child, during those abuses alters were created to handle sexual situations because I was not able to understand and handle adult sex when I was just a child of 4. my brain was just not mature enough to handle that.

in order for me to survive it was best that I not have access to the facts ie the trauma/abuse therefore my system was set up so that I had no co consciousness (awareness) of that trauma and the subsequent alters that were created to handle that.

with me there was an original (host, person born to this body) for some people the trauma's are so severe that their original (host person born to the body ) becomes so traumatized/damaged that they have become so dissociated from the body and system either they are buried so deep none of the alters realize this original person exists or the original has been so dissociated that their mind is in so many dissociated states of mind\fractured (alters).

As for set in stone do you mean the diagnostics/ what DID is/ this special type of alters that come with DID...?

here in the USA some things about DID are set in stone simply because of documented cases of known people in treatment for DID over decades and decades of documentations. its like how the center for disease control can say what diseases are communicable (passed from person to person) because they have documentations to back that fact up. the american mental health system (american Psychiatric Association) puts things in stone like diagnostics and such because of the past history of documentations on the mental disorders. each USA state, and mental agency and hospital keeps files /records\ statistics on each person they treat and each mental disorder they treat. this goes into a big database and then periodically the APA updates their diagnostics and such on mental disorders based on these years of documented cases\statistics.

just a note on this test...yes this is the present DDIS test though it does not include key questions and key elements to the test.

example one difference in the online version and the professional version is that this test is meant to be given twice here in NY, the first time with the questions thrown in to the normal therapy session when the client does not know they are being tested and then the second time when the client knows they are being tested, the two tests results are then compared.

Another thing this test does not tell you is triggers of the body person and internal system, perception, behaviors, sense of agency and other criteria..for DID, in short this test test only scores whether a person has dissociative problems but does not narrow it down to having DID. therefore this test is used in conjunction with other things like therapy sessions, mental health records, physical health records,....

A person doesnt just take an online test and that constitutes a diagnosis here in america. here online tests are meant to show where you are at......at the moment....that you take the tests. since the posting of this link I have taken the test 10 times and received 10 different scores and and many different scoring ranges....

if you feel you may have a dissociation problem contact a mental health treatment provider who can administer the whole testing process whic will give you a better and more accurate diagnosis.

My friend thinks I have DID because I have acted as other people with other names and their own identity, opinions, etc. But I feel like it is a delusion. If I do have DID, I dont feel like treating it like its literally other people is healthy. I feel like I should accept all of the parts as me. But my friend thinks trying to do that right now would be too stressful. He thinks I should let whatever happens happen without fighting it, bc he thinks it is helping me in some way. He wants me to wait for a professional before I try to take on such a big task. I have been looking for a dissociation professional for two years, i even moved to have better chances, and i havent found anyone yet.

Im still a little confused but I think I mostly understand, thank you.

I am not together enough to figure this out right now, but Ive taken the DES before and got a high score on it. Ive also been diagnosed with DDNOS, before the DID criteria changed. So dissociation problems are a fact for me. I just dont understand the full picture, I guess.

your friends idea to treat your alters as literally other people and your wanting to treat them as parts of you....

the way you want to deal with this is actually how most if not all treatment providers in the USA work with DID. you see treatment providers in the USA have learned that past treatment approaches like calling out of alters and enforcing separation, enforcing the alters to be literal people does more harm then good and can cause things like false memory syndrome, false alters to please the therapist behaviors with in the body and internal system. so most if not all treatment providers now work from the premise that the alters are the dissociated states of mind, part of the whole....

the way my treatment provider explained this therapy approach to me is that a person is born one whole person with one whole personality (thoughts feelings, emotions, memories...). then through the use of dissociation and extreme traumatic events as a young child that whole personality (thoughts,feelings memories....) become dissociated separated into compartments (some people call it walled off, rooms, stuffed down....)

then through treatment (therapy and other treatments to address what ever problems/issues there are) the walls come down and each part integrates/merges back into one whole personality again.

an example used by my therapist is the glass of water. it starts out as one cold glass of water. then trauma happens (dump half the class of water in another container and one glass sits in the sunshine.) but then healing happens (warm/room temp glass of water is added back to the cold water and it becomes one whole glass of water again. nothing is lost, just each part is merged back together.

Hi Willowtrees,

I also didn't start noticing my alters until age 18 after a sexually traumatic experience. It could be that you've always had the alters, but just weren't aware of them. Truth be told, no one knows your own mind better than you do. Therapy can help, but even therapists are guessing at best. My advice is to see a therapist, but also do your own research.

You already seem to be aware of your alters and why they exist, so you're off to a great start! Your theory of the gay man seem to be spot on, and prove you already know a lot about yourself. Good luck with this journey to self discovery... It's a doozy ;-)

I didn't recognise alters in myself till I was 15, that's when I had the biggest identity crisis in my life- I felt like I was in the wrong body.

But knowing what I know now, there were things and situations I've done as a kid growing up starting at 6 years old that doesn't jive with the singular mentality. Emotions, feelings, and actions were always out of character to the main theme. Even when I was a teenager, I was switching in and out trying to deal with the abuse at home and school.

The original you is the system. Your just fragmented into parts.

I think you are misunderstanding his view and intentions.. We both know whats best in the long term. We both know about DID and its treatment. We have both done a lot of reading. Sometimes I just forget all that I've read so I can come off as completely new to these theories. But I have spent hours and hours reading.

He doesnt want me to force seperateness if its heading the other way naturally. He simply thinks trying to take the walls down by myself right now would cause too many trauma flashbacks and distress, because we have lived seperately as our own 'people' for so long ; I can see where he's coming from. Integration is something that takes professional guidance, not just played around with or forced. Ive realized this the last few days, as my anxiety has gotten worse and worse trying to force this. I can hardly function now. I think I need to just let the walls be up for now and leave it alone. Its just hard waiting for a therapist.