[lifelies]

Hi everybody,
I hope you all remember me - I'm Tom. I haven't been here much lately because my DID-related issues seem to have disappeared (denial?) - or at least I'm not aware of them as much as I used to be, because I still lose time. Maybe my other problems (mainly BPD) are "overlapping" with DID? My BPD surely hasn't improved.
But let me get back on what I was trying to say - ugh. The thing is, I'm not co-conscious anymore. My "alters" don't seem to do much stuff anymore, but my memory issues (short- and long-term amnesia, being told I've done stuff I don't recall having done... you know) are getting WORSE.
When I first realized I might have DID, I realized my "alters" were trying to help, somehow. There was this "collaboration" among the system - now I feel like I'm alone again (which is good) but I'm still losing time.
I feel like an horrible liar who made all this stuff up. I feel like it makes no sense. If I actually have DID, I'm so scared of it now - I'm so scared of other people being in my body, because I don't NOTICE them now.
Usually I was surprised by seeing tons of posts here made by my alters - none of this happens anymore. It's like they've gone away, and sometimes I switch to a blackout state of consciousness which isn't more than that - not enough to be defined as an alter.
I hope you don't hate me for being a liar, because it WAS real, but it's not anymore?
Anyway, I'll probably don't be much active in the DID forums anymore, but as I'm having tons of difficulties with BPD and probably a mood disorder (yes I still haven't had the courage to ask my parents to take me to a psychiatrist...) I'll be here.
I also seem to be becoming someone I hate - I'm getting worse and worse in a spiral of no self-control, drugs and impulsive behavior. Guess I need some help but - do I want it?
Tom

[I'm Worth It]

Originally Posted by lifelies

Hi everybody,
I hope you all remember me - I'm Tom. I haven't been here much lately because my DID-related issues seem to have disappeared (denial?) - or at least I'm not aware of them as much as I used to be, because I still lose time. Maybe my other problems (mainly BPD) are "overlapping" with DID? My BPD surely hasn't improved.
But let me get back on what I was trying to say - ugh. The thing is, I'm not co-conscious anymore. My "alters" don't seem to do much stuff anymore, but my memory issues (short- and long-term amnesia, being told I've done stuff I don't recall having done... you know) are getting WORSE.
When I first realized I might have DID, I realized my "alters" were trying to help, somehow. There was this "collaboration" among the system - now I feel like I'm alone again (which is good) but I'm still losing time.
I feel like an horrible liar who made all this stuff up. I feel like it makes no sense. If I actually have DID, I'm so scared of it now - I'm so scared of other people being in my body, because I don't NOTICE them now.
Usually I was surprised by seeing tons of posts here made by my alters - none of this happens anymore. It's like they've gone away, and sometimes I switch to a blackout state of consciousness which isn't more than that - not enough to be defined as an alter.
I hope you don't hate me for being a liar, because it WAS real, but it's not anymore?
Anyway, I'll probably don't be much active in the DID forums anymore, but as I'm having tons of difficulties with BPD and probably a mood disorder (yes I still haven't had the courage to ask my parents to take me to a psychiatrist...) I'll be here.
I also seem to be becoming someone I hate - I'm getting worse and worse in a spiral of no self-control, drugs and impulsive behavior. Guess I need some help but - do I want it?
Tom

drugs -- drugs will mask and prevent proper diagnosis. While you are doing illicit drugs you will not be able to benefit from any therapy for any possible disorder you have. And, you have to want help in order for it to be effective. Get help to stop the illicit drug use first. That is the first "layer". Once that is under control, you can address other things.

Take this in steps. You already recognize the problem, acceptance of that is the next step which in turn will allow you to seek and benefit from help.

[amandalouise]

Im sorry but only your treatment provider can tell you what is going on directly related to you. what I can say is that ....in general....DID does not simply disappear, and dissociative type alters are a very special kind they do not disappear, die or be killed. when they are gone so to speak everything they were becomes one with the person in which they reside with in (the body born person or as my location calls it the host)

my suggestion if you want to know what is going on with in you, you will need to contact your (or a )treatment provider in your off line location.

[finding_my_way]

it is possible that things are just quiet. in my own experience, that is how i think it has been. years ago, mine were quite active, but i never really had 100% black outs. i used to hear and feel them all the time almost. over the last few years though, it has lessened a lot so that i do not hear or feel them much. when it does not happen for so long then does again, it freaks me out because i am able to think, like you, that i either made it up or i'm in denial. but when i feel them again, it reminds me that they are not gone and are very real. that is what confuses me because if they are not real, how could i feel them like i do? i try not to focus too much on the 'what if' stuff and just deal with things as they happen.

but if you are actively using drugs and/or drinking, etc. that can definitely increase other symptoms including memory loss even in a person without DID or BPD.

I haven't been around long, but I've heard of alters going quiet.

And yes, you want help.

I/we have spent 30 years of out of control drinking and drugging, lost in an alternate reality ready to die by overdose. When we got clean a few years ago, everything started falling in to place.

Granted I've been drinking, and so have the others, but we are not drinking tonight. We have plans of going back to meetings.

If things ever get beyond your control and that you are in danger of yourself or others, call 911 and get to an ER where they will give you a psych evaluation and then send you to a psych hospital where you can start receiving mental aid.

Before I got insurance, I attended a clinic that billed on a sliding scale. I'm poor enough that the appointments and meds were "free".

Good luck!

Originally Posted by I'm Worth It

drugs -- drugs will mask and prevent proper diagnosis. While you are doing illicit drugs you will not be able to benefit from any therapy for any possible disorder you have.

I disagree with this. Have been in T a year now. My drug use has hardly been mentioned. Its seen as a symptom rather than a cause, and by dealing with the DID issues, my drug use has halved without any conscious effort.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by Justagir1

I disagree with this. Have been in T a year now. My drug use has hardly been mentioned. Its seen as a symptom rather than a cause, and by dealing with the DID issues, my drug use has halved without any conscious effort.

I see you are located in Yorksire (the UK ?) here in america treatment providers have to look at drugs and alcohol use when diagnosing whether a problem is dissociative or not because drugs and alcohol can cause dissociative like symptoms of memory problems, numbness, spaciness, foggy minded, poor judgement, not remembering what one did or said, mood switching that can appear as if someone switched personalities.

short version one of the diagnostics for dissociative disorders here is that the problem can not be because of drugs alcohol, and not better explained by other mental physical problems. so here it is one of the things treatment providers do have to address.

[Kachik]

Hi Tom,

No, your DID can not simply disappear. All the posts I've read here offer sound advice. I think I know some of what you may be feeling. I don't know you, so I can't know everything, but I've had my alters stop talking and everything go quiet and felt the same doubts and feelings you describe MORE THAN ONCE in my 3 years of therapy for DID. I know what it is like to feel like you are going crazy. You are not. I know what it is like to feel scared when this happens. I know what it is like to want to give up. What you describe you are experiencing is not uncommon in patients with DID. Only a professional, a therapist who understands and believes in DID, can help you discover what is causing your alters to be silent or you to be unable to hear them, etc. Yes, you do need to deal with your substance abuse issues. In my own personal experience, I have worked through, with my psychologist, long stretches of silence, fears of being psychotic, feelings of confusing dreams with reality, feelings of denial, wanting to give up, doubt, etc. more than once. It is a part of the process of healing from what I have read in the literature and been told by my therapist, for some DID patients to move back and forth between stages of treatment rather than to progress directly from one stage to another. I urge you not to give up. I know how hard it is to fight, but you are stronger than you think because you are a survivor. It DOES get easier. For me, I learned from the silences and found they happened less and less, but I needed help and support from my psychologist and anyone else I could get support from, real support, unconditional love. I accepted from the beginning that it would be a long, hard road toward recovery, and still I have relapses, but I always remember that, "This too shall pass." Give yourself lots of love, you deserve it. Fight the negative thoughts that don't belong to you but that you were made to believe. Replace every negative thought with a positive thought. It has helped me, and there are many other ways to help yourself get through this, but you must get back into therapy and get help with your substance abuse. You NEED support. Everyone needs support. Some of us grew up thinking we didn't deserve support or not knowing how to ask for help. Your alters need you. If they are like mine, they need love, lots of love and hugs and understanding. I'm only just understanding now that they all have different ways of thinking about the world and need to learn how to agree to disagree, some progress faster than others at learning how to live in the present, and sometimes alters get confused, have trust issues, need to learn boundaries and so much more. For everyone it is different. I can't know you or your alters, but I can feel empathy for what you are experiencing. My heart goes out to you. You can do this. You are not hateful. You may FEEL hateful. You need help to understand this. I felt extreme self-loathing up until not too long ago, and I'm still a work in progress but I can be happy now as I heal. You can too. Hope this, in some way, helps.

[peaches100]

Hi Tom,

With integration, it may feel like the alters are gone because they have actually merged with the person and don't feel like separate alters anymore. However, this does not sound like what is happening for you. Integration doesn't usually happen all of a sudden (at least not as far as I know).

Also, you say that along with not noticing your alters, you are having blackouts and other problems. This also would indicate that you are not integrated or just suddenly OK and not dissociative.

My guess is that the reason you have not been noticing your alters lately is that you have found a way to disconnect your awareness of them. I have done this at times when I feel overwhelmed with the pain, fear, or demands that come from those parts of me. I start feeling like I can't handle what they are bringing to my attention, whether it be through bad dreams, fuzzy memories, or what feel like panic attacks. I find myself wanting to avoid them because being aware of them, and dealing with them, is too scary.

Once I reach a point where I feel beyond my ability to deal with them, it will suddenly feel like they are gone. Then it is easy to think, "Alright! I don't have alters I need to deal with anymore! Maybe I'm healed and fine now." However, it doesn't take long before I realize that they are not truly gone. I managed to block them from my awareness for a time, but they show back up again later.

Is it possible that you may have intentionally blocked them out of your mind due to some fear of having to listen, feel, accept them as parts of yourself?

Just a possibility. . .

Peaches

[Fuzzybear]

[I'm Worth It]

Originally Posted by Justagir1

I disagree with this. Have been in T a year now. My drug use has hardly been mentioned. Its seen as a symptom rather than a cause, and by dealing with the DID issues, my drug use has halved without any conscious effort.

Drug use is almost always a symptom of a root cause which cannot be identified until the masking is at least under control. However, it is possible to have an alter who is dependent on drugs or alcohol, in which case, I'd say your therapist has been treating or getting through to an alter . . . Nevertheless, the drugs use needs to be minimized at least in order to get to the bottom of everything.

Drugs and/or alcohol are rarely, if ever, the cause of anyone's "issues". 99% of the time, there is an underlying problem that the patient is dealing with in an unhealthy way, even an alter.

Depending on how you've presented for therapy, I'd say your therapist determined that it would be too stressful to the system to mention or try to remove them because it would have caused additional stress, but I promise you if things didn't calm down for you with the drugs at some point, he/she would have addressed it.

Most my others and I are alcoholics and addicts. We've all been abused. Sad thing about all this is we all don't want to quit at the same time, if at all. Sure I want to abstain, but that doesn't stop the next one from running to the beer store.

Best we've ever done was being jailed and under threat of imprisonment. That got everyone's attention for 5 years. We don't do too well on our own.

[lifelies]

Hi all.

Thanks for all the kind replies and sorry for not having replied myself, I obviously forgot I wrote this post and my purpose of being active here again

Since I'm not seeing a therapist or a doctor (long story short, i just can't) I don't really care about whether or not I have a valid DID diagnosis. I just want the alters to really have gone away, I don't want to get back to my happy multiple life even if I was happy - it's not like I was happy but I had all this ACTIVITY inside me, and it sort of made me feel better.

My drug use is worsening. I'm starting to drink way too often, usually because I feel the urge to get high on whatever and the most available drug is alcohol - I believe that's because of the loss of impulse control caused by BPD and not an alter getting in control. I now feel hopeless and sort of numb, I just can't seem to react to what's happening around me. I should work in a college project, and I'll start school in less than a month. I should be doing tons of stuff I actually ENJOY doing, but I feel apathic and with no energy to do anything.

It's this apathy, this numbness but yet the will to do something with my life that drives me mad and makes me do drugs. I never thought I'd be like this - I buy alcohol almost as often as I buy cigarettes (and I smoke around a pack a day). I smoke weed which I've been done for a while and it used to help, now I resort to it as a "get high and forget about stuff" drug rather than fun. I steal other people's weed because I can't afford my habits. I abuse benzodiazepines and other prescriptions. I get higher and higher but I just feel numb, and I crave to feel something!

I've become a junkie, a dirty junkie. My relationship with my mother is worsening. I want to hug her and tell her I love her, but I'm unable to feel any love towards anyone! Sometimes I love someone so much, then hate them, then nothing. I'm not having suicidal thoughts but I want this to stop. The only way this could be worse was if I knowingly had alters - I really Do NOT want them and if, like you suggest, DID hasn't "disappeared", I want them to go away because I just can't afford it??

I don't think I'm making any sense. I'm actually high right now, so sorry if I sound stupid, but I've made my way into being more functional while high than sober (my tolerance to weed, alcohol and benzos is high enough that I don't really get high anymore, just feel a little better).

I'm dirt.

[-jimi-]

I just wanted to say this, I very strongly doubt, that you are dirt. I'm sorry you're hurting.

[Kachik]

I agree. You are far from dirt. You're self esteem has taken a serious beating. What life circumstances you must have had. I wish I could take away your pain. Worried about you.
Many of your symptoms, especially numbness, apathy... and others you named I've experienced many times until I found help. I just want you to know I've been where you are, the substance abuse and all the self-loathing, etc. You sound like you have a kind heart. Be kind to yourself. Find someone you trust, any one, to talk to regularly about your feelings (all they need to do is listen). Look on-line for resources for free therapy or for therapy at greatly reduced prices that are exist to help people in need. Or try a Spiritual Counselor for lowering costs of therapy / psychiatry. My own parents were dead-set against taking any of us to the hospital, a psychologist or anyone who might figure out all the painful trauma "stories" and secrets locked up inside me. There is always hope. PLEASE don't give up without a good fight. It's difficult to find help, I know, when you feel lost, alone, tired, apathetic and worthless. I'm on you side.