[ShadowsinTheDay]

So, an Ego State doesn't take over, but DID does?

I just like asking these types of questions, to know more.

How are they like DID, and how do they differ? Thanks. (Sorry I hijaked the other thread.)

ShadowsinTheDay

[pegasus]

Everyone has ego states, if you look up Eric Bernes his model is very understandable, ie adult, child, parent states.

A singleton has ego states making up the personality. The child part is feelings, needs and wants. The adult part is the reasoning, learning part. The parent part is the rules and customs.

A multiple has many parts. The ego states (child, adult and parent) are split into different groups. ie each child part has it's own set of feelings, with different adult- intelligence level and possibly different parental rules. Every multiples system is different but usually have more child parts than most.

Hope my post is understandable and helps.

You like asking questions. Can I ask you why are you asking so many questions? Do you have DID? Are you a student doing reseach? Why do you need to know?

[nothemama8]

Hi Flying Pony, maybe Shadow is seeing us as rats in a lab, don't think we likes it very mich
Billy

or maybe shadows is trying to understand.
maybe shadows has a friend with something like this going on.
a husband.
a child.
maybe shadows is wondering about what is going on for shadows.

maybe shadows is trying to understand.

people go to the personality disorders forum and ask questions about personality disorders...
people go to the therapy forum and ask questions about therapy...

[nothemama8]

okie dokie we be nice not bad
Billy

[kimmydawn]

Yep, questions are OK.

Questions regarding questions are OK too.

It's part of conversation. For instance, if someone asks me something about why I did something, or responded in some way, I respond then usually follow up with, "Why do you ask?"

It's all good.

KD

This is interesting--what pegasus said--we met someone in the hospital that has "ego states" and not DID--yet her "Little A..." came out alot and so did her "Strength" ego state....very confusing----not DID yet has ego states who come out???? Any ideas on this one???
w_i

i think part of the difference is a difference in degree.

part of the difference in degree could come down to lack of amnesia for times the ego state is out. (amnesia is required for DID dx)

part of the difference in degree could come down to lack of their being in control. so... talking about them instead of switching into them i guess.

part of the difference in degree could come down to how elaborated they are. so... 'fragments' rather than 'identities'. e.g., one feeling state (e.g., panic) without elaboration into a name and memories and stuff like that.

part of the difference in degree could come down to what kind of personality they are. so... like how that article differentiated DID from less extreme conditions on the basis of whether there was a split in the ANP or not. so, on this definition it wouldn't matter how many EPs there were without a split in the ANP the person would be DDNOS or complex PTSD and not DID. though... i think they did say something about how it is DID if the amnesia requirement of the DSM is met. so... no hard and fast line methinks...

[ShadowsinTheDay]

pegasus:

Thanks. Ya, it's understandable, thanks.

nothemama8:

No, I'd never see Anyone like taht. I can ask questions can't I? It's just all very intresting...

And please, you can direct that sort of question to me...

Alexandra: Thanks. I really like how you stood up for me. I don't really want to tell anyone why

I'm asking. I'm just intrested, for the most part, about ego states VS DID, and also Inner

children. .


Billy: Thanks for being nicer now. .

KD: I can't help in getting the feeling that now that i've asked so many questions you guys are

getting suspishous of why. Is it ok that I don't tell? (Right now I'd beome sick if I told you.)
Can I just be a person who asks questions? .

ShadowsinTheDay

hey shadows. i think that people can sometimes be a little suspicious of all the questions because people might have been interested in a 'freak show' kinda way before. does that make sense? i guess people worry a little that you have a purely 'academic interest' or something and that you might be going 'what freaks!' and laughing into your computer or something.

people are just trying to be cautious about opening themselves up to someone who isn't reciprocating the risk (by sharing their intentions / situation etc).

just tryin to help.

[ShadowsinTheDay]

I understand perfectly well. Believe me. I'm definitly not laughing... I just can't tell... I'd never laugh at anyone. I understand why they feel the say they do. Every disorder (Or what Drs classafie as a disorder), people are worryed about being called freaks. O ya, I understand...
I'm sorry for making people suspisous.

ShadowsinTheDay

[Crystal88]

I was confused about this too - ego states but not DID, and also this - DDNOS or complex PTSD and not DID - from another post in this thread so I talked to my therapist this morning about them.

She said the difference between ego states and alters of DID is that

everyone has ego states even people who are not DID. Ego states are feelings like the inner child concept where you feel like the parent of yourself - always having to remind yourself to eat, go to bed on time stuff a parent would, or feeling like an adult feeling and being responsible making dfecisions from logic not emotional side of things, or feeling like a child where you feel like you can't do anything, want others to take care of you and fix you, tell you what to do, make your decisions for you so you have some one else to blame. Theres no lose of awareness just feelings.

Alters of DID can be traced back to abuse and trauma memories and once the trauma and abuse memories are taken care of the person no longer switches into the alters because the memories have been integrated into the conscious awareness. With Alters there is usually some sort of time loss spanning anywhere between seconds to days.

and the diagnosis questions that I wanted to know about whaat are DDNOS, Complex PTSD but not DID -

DDNOS means the person has some symptoms of each of the dissociative disorders in the DSM IV TR but not enough of any set diagnosis to fit in to one specific dissociative disorder, kind of a pot luck stew of Dissociative amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, Depersonalization, DID, ect.. But not all of the criteria for any one of them.

Complex PTSD thats having a mental disorder plus having PTSD. Like I have the diagnosis of DID plus I have the diagnosis of PTSD. Because I fit all the criteria for both PTSD and DID my file can at any point be wrote up as saying I have Complex PTSD.

I asked her if someone can be Complex PTSD and not be DID, She said not if the catagory they fit is the one that has the DID criteria for it. My being called Complex PTSD doesnt mean I don't have DID. It means I still have DID but I also have PTSD, like atwo for one sale - one lable for two disorders lumped together.

She said theres a few different types of complex PTSD but for each one the person must be diagnosed as having both the disorders in that catagory. and then they are considered to have Complex PTSD. Like theres having both Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD so a person is called Complex PTSD,

[ShadowsinTheDay]

Ya! My question is veladated. .

Thanks for talking to your T about it. .

So, you can black out in seconds too?

Cool. Say to the T that a person named ShadowsinTheDay sayd thanks for teh info ok. .

Ya, and heres a website too. About DDNOS

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dsp...teria%20DDNOS"

I think this is the one... .

ShadowsinTheDay

[(JD)]

Some doctors, who don't "believe" in the multiple personality alter "line of thinking" might call the different (personalities?) Ego states... ego states that don't have the communication link between them like (singletons) do...

Semantics. Doctors see the differences in those with this disorder...some just don't really know what they are seeing, and what to call it, and what they want to believe about it sometimes! It doesn't change what you all go through in the healing process, imo.

[ShadowsinTheDay]

.

Ya, it's like saying, "You you can't talk because i can't ehar your voice." I guess it's like that for DID right? Can't see the Alter so don't beleave right? Or, am I wrong?

ShadowsinTheDay

[southernyankee]

All these labels and letters for the disorders makes me dizzy. Does it really help to know exactly what category you fit in? I guess it would to help get the right meds. All I know is I am so tired of fighting which ever label fits me now. Right when I think I'm getting well and having a decent life, I get knocked on my *** and dumped back in the black hole.

> Does it really help to know exactly what category you fit in? I guess it would to help get the right meds.

well... it would only help you get the right meds if medications were specific to diagnostic categories rather than symptoms. unfortunately, meds, in the majority of cases, aren't diagnosis specific so much as symptom specific.

but then you add in to the picture how symptoms can be a matter of degree...

and you add in to that picture how much of a placebo affect there is compared to other active substances...

and psychiatry ain't lookin like so much of a medical science after all ;-)

[ShadowsinTheDay]

LOL!.
Ya. just DXed on what they see... I heard something on tv once that I thought was really good. "If you walk in the door and you don't smile at the Phycietrest, you walk out the door with a DX of d*pr*ss*on."

That's about what it's up to now...

ShadowsinTheDay

[Crystal88]

youre welcome and I did thanks for the link.

[Crystal88]

It helps me because I get scared and confused when I don't know what is going on with me, like when I kept getting so tired all the time and crying all the time. I never knew there was such a thing called depression. I just thought I was going nuts when I still could not shake being so sad a year after a relative died. It was only after I went to a doctor and he explained to me what depression was and what kinds of things can cause a person to sink into it. then gave me the medicine to take and I felt much better. The same way with my having DID. Before I knew what it was called a friend and I were talking about our memories of being kids. she remembered things that we did together and I didnt remember anything at all. I thought I was just strange and crazy because all my friends could remember what they did every day but I couldnt, Why couldnt I remember names and places and doing things with her when I was a kid. I had to be crazy to forget going to an amusement park or camping and all that other stuff we used to do. But now after being diagnosed with having DID and my psychiatrist and t herapist telling me what DID is and what treatment stuff I need to do I don't feel so nuts and alone anymore and Im getting better.

hey crystal. i think i hear what you are saying: sometimes being given a diagnosis helps to normalise ones experience (other people have this too! there are treatments that can help me! etc).

trouble is...

i think it is possible to normalise someones experience and give them hope that things can get better WITHOUT imposing a diagnostic category on them.

(so the benefits can be obtained in other ways)

furthermore...

there can be very real harms that result from someone having a dx category imposed on them (such that clinicians are likely to assume rather than assess symptoms, such that clients are often informed they have a chronic condition thereby making it more likely to be so and so on and so forth).

of course we seem to need some threshold / categorical thing for the purposes of health insurance...

but IMHO it is a sad sad day indeed when political issues outweigh the scientific issues with respect to teh classification of mental disorders.

[sunrise]

I like this definition of ego states:

"Paul Federn (1952), a close associate of Freud’s,... believed that the personality was not simply a collections of perceptions, cognitions, and affects, but that these organized into clusters or patterns, which he called ego states. An ego state may be defined as an organized system of behavior and experience whose elements are bound together by some common principle. When one of these states is invested with ego energy, it becomes “the self” in the here and now. We say it is “executive,” and it experiences the other states (if it is aware of them at all) as “he,” “she,” or “it,” because they are then currently invested with object energy.

Ego states may be large and include all the various behaviors and experiences activated in one’s occupation. They may be small, like the behaviors and feelings elicited in school at the age of 6. They may represent current modes of behavior and experiences or, as with hypnotic regression, include many memories, postures, feelings, etc. that were apparently learned at an earlier age. They may be organized into different dimensions. For example, an ego state may be built around the age of 10. Another one may represent patterns of behavior toward father and authority figures and thus overlap on experiences with father at the age of 10. Behaviors to accomplish a similar goal may be uniquely different from one ego state to another, especially in true multiple personalities.”

I think everyone has different ego states (and I think it is considered "normal", whatever that means, and is not a medical diagnosis).

A few months ago I recovered some repressed memories and with them, a little girl ego state of about 4 years old, who had experienced some bad stuff I had completely blocked from my mind for decades. My therapist taught me to take care of her. I have a lot of other ego states too, of different ages and "themes." Some of them are lots more distinct than others. Many are fairly integrated into my main self, others not so much. Sometimes they appear in my dreams, and sometimes in my conscious thought, and sometimes I can see them out of the corner of my eye, like a little girl shadowing me. But if I turn and face her directly, she is gone. Here is what I wrote in my journal about my ego states a few months ago:

I had a vision of who I am.... I saw myself as a room full of shadowy people, all myself, of different ages and characteristics. They are mostly gray, shadow people—all my ego states. A few are more differentiated than others and stand out to me. I recognize them. In addition to my recently found little 4 year old girl, who is with me almost constantly now, there is an older girl of perhaps 7 or 8 or 9. And there is a teenage girl too. I realized I had a new conception of self—my room full of ego states. And I also had a new conception of who I am—the team leader who holds us all together, who leads us all through life in a coordinated effort to function. And I felt proud of myself, that I could marshal the forces and get us through life. I think it’s not easy, especially under trying circumstances like the last few years. But I’ve done it.

I feel more whole now with my little girl ego state known to me. And I feel richer, like my self is richer and fuller. And I feel somehow more content than before. Like, how could I not have known this girl before because she is a part of me? And now she’s come home to me and I welcome her into my arms.

I don't have any experience with DID, but I think it is pretty different. My ego states never take me over, they are experienced more as "she" than as "I."

[SerenitysWave]

i am glad that these questions were asked Shadow... I have trouble organizing my ideas and thoughts sometimes and therefore I dont ask or wont post out of my own frsutration, so I appreciate when someone else asks b/c it helps others like me...

I like having " DX labels" because it makes me feel more "normal" b/c at least then it is a known vs no label and not knowing what I am dealing with and feeling like an "oddity" or feeling like I really am crazy or something... if that makes any sense to anyone....

hey. it makes sense to me. but then... i guess i think that it is possible to have ones experience normalised without ones experience being labelled.

i mean... being diagnosed with a mental disorder...
if that isn't evidence that you are in fact supposed to be crazy...

what is?

[ShadowsinTheDay]

Sun Rise: Thanks for getting the thread back on track, and offering your opinion, I thought I had l8st this thread for a minute there. Also, This quote from you,

"My ego states never take me over, they are experienced more as "she" than as "I." "

Isn't it the other way around? Like "I" are ego states cuz they feel like you, and DID, feeles like someone else I guess? Just wondering.

SerenitysWave: Glad I could help you with teh question, and all the info people have gave.

Alexandra: I thought mental "disorders" are only disorders because they intrupt your life so much. And they are not what people consider normal. I don't know... Cya all.

ShadowsinTheDay