What's Your Trigger??

Hello everyone,

With this thread I am asking everyone what triggers their DID/MI to worsen. Is there a certain feeling or person or life event that will trigger you to switch personalities? Are you conscious of your personality switches? Or do they happen without your knowledge?

For me, my personality switches happen only when I've been drinking alcohol, or when I'm trying to sleep at night. I'm never aware when I switch until after I'm back to what I believe is my host personality. Recently my switching has gotten worse. It happens nightly now and I'm not sure what's causing my condition to worsen. I'm unsure of what my triggers are specifically, but am interested in hearing what triggers other people on this site.

The goal of this thread is to just share what our triggers are in a light hearted and informative way. Happy posting and have fun with it!

i don't know if i have DID/MI i haven't been diagnosed with it but i suspect i do..something that triggers a switch for me is when i see someone i suddenly want to be like, like how they are dressed. my personality will switch to the version of me that can accommodate that. it's hard to put into words. sometimes my churchy personality comes out when i see something or hear something that makes me think of church. a song. a kindness. even people who look like they would be church going. i have to make an effort to reel my personalities in and try to connect with my host again before i get carried away.

Everything is a trigger it seems. Switching is seamless- we change on the fly. It use to happen unnoticed till I became aware of it. Sometimes my behavior catches my eye which clues me in. Sometimes switching feels like putting on a body glove or being possessed. We flex the muscles and wiggle the fingers and toes because it feels good to finally be a physical body.

Sometimes we automatically end up in a trance trying to find an alter to handle a sudden event. It's like trying 20 keys to unlock a lock and I got to pee. I really hate it because I start heating up as my anxiety rises to panic levels because I'm conscience of how long it's taking. I've been asked "Are you all right??" a few times or gotten weird looks. Samething happens when someone asks a memory question and I got to go looking for the memory! Lol.

I quit drinking! Yaaaay! Which means the meaner ones can't escape and rage unrestricted. What happened yesterday, no idea. But it's done.

My old therapist says that she's impressed at my insight! I hope that doesn't mean I'm too self absorbed! Lol

Hey yall, I was driving to work on the freeway and work is 15 minutes away so I had a lot of thinking time to think. So I pulled over and wanted to jot some of them down because I'm a self employed designer and I can do that, lol. I was thinking about this discussion topic and I know that "everything" is a lazy way to say "everything" so let me clarify.

First off, I'm not DID, I'm just crazy, and this place is the best place I fit in. The first 18 years was hell till I escaped at 18 years old. The only coping skills I had was to stay withdrawn to endure the beatings. I was like a mindless zombie through all of it with no personality. When I got screamed at I'd blank out. When I got hit, I'd come too but be in horror mode. Even at school all the other girls made fun of me, and so did the guys. I had very few friends and stayed in my own little space. Pretty normal, right? I don't know. After 18 I had zero coping skills to deal with life, so I spent the next several years trying to build some.

I've noticed that my triggers are:

People- I can't relate to people, so I have several alters for that. I've got a couple to deal with males, and I have several to deal with woman. Others to deal with bosses, kids, azzholes, biitchs, friends, etc. People never know because they actually see one version of me that's required to deal with that individual. Sometimes we slip up and get a little mixed up because of whatever, but it's small because we recover right away.

Job- I'm my own persons, I do everything. Depending on the job, I need a different skill set to do each. Everything is a job, from family life to work, to sewing, to cooking, to car repair, to raising a child, to musician, etc. I've got an alt for that. Even for sex I have both genders to have fun with!

Extreme emotions- when I get over the top emotional, another alter would take over. For instance, when my partner and I are in a screaming fight, I'll switch and the fighter would disappear and a happy alter would come out. Boy does that piss off my partner! Lol. I'm smiling and laughing like nothing's happened. Deep distress is another. When I'm in my lowest of lows knowing it's the end of it all and I'm about to kill myself, a soothing calm voice would comfort me and then I'd switch and the tears would instantly dry up and I'd feel light hearted and happy, and I'd forget why I was so distraught and get up and bounce away like nothing happened. It has saved my life numerous times.

Situations- it depends. Like when I'm scared and I want to scream and run, a tough alter comes out and now we're in stand your ground or attack mode. Place in life, which means an alter becomes host for that period of time. I've been a many different things for years even.

Places- I sometimes hate shopping, but I have an alt for that. Boy she sure loves shopping! Lol When I'm at home I get to relax, that's where I mostly come out because I'm the motherly type, the nurturer. The one that is the home keeper. I've had a lot of time off that's why I've lived on here, but it's spring time and everyone now wants to dress up their homes and this is when we get busy. Jail- I got a tough one for that. Meeting clients, there's another, all business like kissing butt and stuff.

Those are the major triggers but I have quite a few lesser ones. As you can see, one can say that's normal, sure I am. Normally crazy. The only difference is that I know that I become someone else through feel. Each alter has a different attitude, mind set, gestures, manner of speaking, intelligence level, write differently, way of thinking and seeing things. When I switch, I barely remember anything of what the skills are for a job, the memories are dreamy, or almost everything of what they were doing prior to a switch- just foggy snapshots of it even though I'm in control of each personality. My day, week, year, life is segmented with holes. Sometimes I have to go digging for the memories so that I don't look like the crazy person I am. I know it's not from drinking because I'm 3 days sober now.

Now combine all this with the multi-layers of bipolar, we now have got a hot soup of crazy going on! Lol

Since I'm just the homebody, and since this is my world here in PC, I drove us to work thinking. Now our designer person is about to take over in a minute because the client is another 500 feet away and is a male. Well I got to go. So that's what I go through every day. I hope I made sense! Ciau.

Wow alwayschanging2, thank you for the very detailed response! You never cease to amaze me with your intellectual insight. I don't think you're really crazy. To me you sound like a highly functional person. You have a system for everything and manage to balance your work and home life fairly well. I had a DID episode yesterday while driving. I got crazy angry and started screaming with a force I didn't even know existed inside myself. I'm unsure if this was a new angry alter who I created to deal with my stalking situation. I was on my way to speak with a private investigator, so its highly likely. My memories of yesterday are foggy. It honestly felt like I turned into someone else.

Thank you. Anything to help. Stalking situation? Omg! Who can it be? Do you know him? Can't you call the police or FBI? I hope you stay safe girlfriend.

Oh, I forgot music. Songs trigger me too. I just switched about 5 times on the freeway ride home jamming to Motley Crüe and Metallica. I've learned to go with the flow baby because when I fought it, I was totally miserable and I know it's a losing battle.

When there is a feeling of threat, it's a big trigger. Being abandoned or losing someone important is another one. Any social event, party or similar situation brings about a change.

but then again...this only applies IF its really DID and not a well orchestrated farce. Who knows?? who cares?

Mines something that has to deal with one of my alter, like a style or food, or something like that

We (as a system) seem to be triggered by love - life taught us that love hurt, so when we feel love towards us, see a couple... our natural reaction is to feel. To feel what? Depends on the alter - Christine will react with rage, Chris with fear, Allie will probably have a mood switch....
We (as several individuals) have different triggers, since we are essentially different people. From my understanding on DID (in our system), an alter's triggers depend on the trauma/events/feelings/characteristics they hold. For example, Chris is terrified of cars. Some alters are triggered by alcohol, and if one of us drank and a switch happens, a mess is guaranteed.
Lana

Hey, interesting that you said that because I feel like I got wholes, parts of parts and parts of wholes. It's just like everyone wants a piece of the action now that the door has been unlocked.

Lifelies,

Thank you for stating alcohol is your trigger! I noticed I always seem to switch into an overly emotional, brash and rebellious teenage girl when I drink. I used to think that was just how I acted when I was drunk. But I started blacking out no matter how much I drank, and all the memories I did have seemed so strange. I could never understand why I acted so different when I drank. I honestly believe I have a personality switches when drinking. It makes sense because I was sexually traumatized while drinking when I was 18 years old. The switches were harder to notice when I was younger, but now at 32 I know I should act. I've blacked out after only a few sips of alcohol.

Love and heartbreak also trigger switches for me. I don't think I handle rejection from relationships well at all. In fact i think each one of my ex boyfriends have a personality designed to help me get over the heartbreak quicker. Or at least I feel that I got over everything quicker, when in reality I just create other identities to help me cope.

Thank you all for your insight as it helps me identify what my own triggers are. I'm very new at this MI/DID stuff and am still learning about it all.

We switch all day long, anything can trigger us to switch. Something on television. Something a person says. Or how someone looks. Anything showing abuse to children or animals. So etimes the tone of a voice. Etcetera.