What is your switching?

So been trying to figure out if switching for me is involuntary, or voluntary. I cant seem to figure it out. I am aware sometimes I have a thought that is conscious, " I cant take this" or I cant do this right now," something along those lines, but also aware that at times I have a blank mind. And will have no idea why I switched.

It is driving me crazy that I don't know or feel more towards one side.

What would it mean if I was voluntarily switching? First thought is why would I want to miss out on some much time? I also see that maybe the situation was to emotional, okay, if that is the case..i would feel shame and extremely bad ...like its my fault I have this disorder now...or have that kind of thinking.

If involuntarily, then why so often in what I, before switch happens, perceive to be no threat, not emotional, non triggering, etc.. but I vanish and cant remember a thing.

Sometimes I feel there is truly two parts of me that do this kind of dance, and I cant distinguish me from her.

I feel I was present today in session, but as foggy headed as I am right now, I believe that it was not me there, but who Iam I? Am I her, and she me? Does anyone really know? Is it a fight for control of the body for now? Is this a way to divert my attention to the real matter? Have I lost it?

So interested in how others view their own switching? Thoughts?

if by voluntary you mean i could just decide one moment ok im not going to be amanda anymore I am going to be Rainy now, control who and when and where I switch into each of my alters no. i was not a voluntary switcher.

short version in my location dissociation is an involuntary reaction to a trigger. just like when someone says something that a person doesnt like their involuntary reaction is to feel some level of anger. when someone is having a good time their involuntary reaction is to be happy, excited.

in me what caused me to switch into alters was being triggered and dissociating. sometimes i did not realize I was having my dissociative symptoms and other times I did. Each of my alters has their own sense of agency (what their jobs, purposes, reasons for being created, what caused them to ....take....control of the body away from me and the others....)

for example if i was triggered by rain storms or extremely sad Rainy took control to handle \ take care of those things for me.

voluntary as is choosing when where and how i dissociated into my alters no. my system was involuntary, out of my control.

Hello. you ask some provocative questions. I can only share what I think. I am not a doc. and what I think comes from my own expereicnes with DID and dissociation.

I lived with DID for many many years. I didnt know what was going on with me for years. I didnt even realize I wasnt there and then was. I was basically living thorugh my alters for a long while.

In time, when I was quite a way along in life, I got a name (DID) for what was wrong with me. To me that was really important because it meant it could be fixed. I could work and change whatever was creating this situation with me.

OVer time I became aware of the others/ alter/s functions. It turned out that some of these alters knew the same people and others didnt. Each alter had her own history based on the memories and things that alters had been prsent for and expereinced. Memory was not shared. Personal hisotry was not shared. There was no choice involved here. My life was being lived in reaction. IT was automatic.

After getting into therapy and after becoming aware of what was going on with me, I was able to get myself together. This involved accepting the memories and experinces of the others/alters/ functions (whatever one wants to call them ) as 'my own.' Gradully my life experiences were gathered up and made my own. With this came my own sense of being present and connected. With this came my sense of self. I was a whole aware person.

At a point in therapy when my memories and expreinces and the feelings attached to them were finally accepted and worked through as mine there was a time that I beleive had I chosen to let go and indulge it I could have fallen back in my awareness and with the others sill partially there , let another step in and take over . I fought hard against this because I felt that if I allowed this to happen I would threaten my ongoing personality integration.

For me, that was the only time in my life I could have made a conscious choice to yield to dissociation. that is my expereince with this. I caution you to worry too much about you being a bad person who is somehow at fault for your experiencing dissociation. This is a defense mechanism and as such it is a reactive thing that is automatic.

Dissociation itself is a common expereince that frequently takes palces when we do something without thinking, such as performing some act our body recognizes and knows and does by heart without a directed conscious choice.

The fact that you who are here do not percive a threat that you react to before you find yourself lost , to me doesnt not mean that there is no threat. Assocaitive triggers are also automatic and occur without our conscious awareness.

Take care and try not to be so hard on yourself. It is hard enough for you that you are expereincing emotional distress and pain without adding to it by blaming youself.

Take care of yourself and be kind to yourself. If you have to try not to think and analyze everything. I know that ahrd soemtime, but its oaky to let things go for awhile and give your head a rest.

mine always has been involuntarily and very fast. while i know some things that can trigger it (stress is a big factor), there are a lot of times also that there are no triggers i can figure out. well, i guess that's not completely true..though it can feel like it happens out of nowhere.

i don't always know reasons. sometimes it seems like a cycle that keeps going once it starts...like a switch gets flipped on and like a revolving door that exhausts me. it can take hours for the effects of dissociation to lessen for me, especially if it's been particularly severe. sometimes, i won't even know i have been dissociating until like a week later.

i have a lot of variations, reasons, etc. so i would guess it's like that for you too, things you cannot pinpoint.

i'd think if it was voluntary, you would be able to notice it more because it would be a choice to do it compared to involuntary where you don't have warning signs of it, don't expect it, and don't always know it's happening.

We switch between about fifteen of us fluidly throughout the day...there are 35-40 of us altogether, but a lot remain in the background. Our switchy is both involuntary and voluntary. Just depends on the situation.

For me it was completely involuntary and without my awareness until well into therapy. I wasn't really even consciously aware of 'lost time', or I didn't term it as such or something. It was simply my normal or my experience of life to not really have any control about what happened, what I did or where I ended up. Inconsistent experiencing was 'life'.
In therapy, after getting to know and sharing information and experience with the different parts of myself, I was able to be more conscious of the switching process. I could give permission and 'step aside' for another alt to come forward. (On the other hand I couldn't prevent it if it was going to happen).
So I guess I wouldn't say switching ever became voluntary... but it definitely became conscious.

Luce, no one really knows before therapy what we are, unless you was someone into the topic of psychology and just happened to wonder based on a set of criteria, but it still would take a diagnosers to validate that ...Once in therapy Inside starts to let on and can bring forth voluntary even out of our awareness the best thing to do is pay attention try to replicate if you feel this alter is for this/that, then see if it works. I tend to think, it is best not to know the system through and through especially if you only been at a couple years.

Sherri: I think we are a sad case. Its different for everybody i believe.

For us, switching is very triggered to the life event, moment, situation.

But we are so co-con, we can switch at will if we are wanting.

Memories, thoughts, words, feelings, situations, mood, location, activities, and more are switch triggering.

We even fight for body control...is that bad? We have mental (sometimes verbal) confrontation where we are activity trying to assume body control which to a bystander might look like mini seizures :/

So, it really depends on the system and to the depth of the seperation of personalities. I hope that helps.