[kevin_pc]

I'm wondering if maybe I should be screened for a DD. I guess I have some symptoms, but I'm not sure if maybe it's depression or stress. The identity confusion I'm feeling right now is not something I usually feel-- but I'm also wondering if maybe that's because I've bought into a projection of me that is not who I really am. OK here's my story [possible trigger: childhood sexual abuse between kids and self-blame rather than acceptance of survivor status]:

It feels weird to say I trauma background but I guess technically I do. Last week and for a few weeks before that I was really feeling all my negative feelings about childhood events, and increasing numbness, and now denial. I know I was not happy as a very young child (preschool). As I got older (somewhere in elementary school) I began identifying as a robot or feeling that I had to (robots didn't have feelings or human flesh). I was also depressed as a kid but I don't know if I knew this. My robot identify faded as I got older: leaving home is really what saved me. Emotions were not allowed in my childhood home unless they were my dad's. He denied he had emotions but he had plenty of anger. Giving the appearance that anything was not OK was also dangerous in my childhood home. I thought I had learned how to be in touch with my human feelings and emotions as an adult, and day to day I was.

A ****** break up a year and a half ago sent me into depression except I didn't recognize I was depressed. I thought I was just responding to my circumstances. I would take depression screens and questions like 'do small things seem to take a lot of effort' I would answer 'no' to... while my laundry was getting mildew in the washer. I think I'm getting better but then sometimes I'll go back to feeling horrible again. The best way I can tell I'm depressed is by observing my thoughts and body sensations rather than my emotions. I can't access my depressed emotions/ I feel numb. I only yesterday talked about the severity of my symptoms enough with my primary care provider to get an anti-depressant rx.

The precipitating event to me wondering if maybe I should be screened for DDs is a realization that happened a little over a month ago about my first sexual experience (I was a preschooler when it happened) that just shattered things for me. The experience was always something that 'just happened' and I did not define it as abuse before, although I did wonder how it may have affected me. For a few weeks after my realization about this incident, I walked around feeling shocked, hallow, shattered, numb, and detached, and also feeling negative feelings-- anger, grief, and lots of shame and self-blame. There are other incidents of things happening to me, that I guess technically is sexual abuse, but I don’t think of myself as having an abuse background. Thinking I have any sort of abuse background feels surreal to me. There are other things happening in my life right now too that also just feel surreal. Anyway, it’s the first incident (when I was a preschooler) that’s the hardest for me to think about though-- I was made to interact with a two year old boy by his older sister and I have no way to really think about this. The thought that I was the perpetrator because I was five (three years older than the other boy) made me depressed to the point of suicidal ideation, but I could not admit this to anyone. I knew I was isolating and when I realized how alone and invisible I was, that backed me away from suicidality. The switch was dramatic- like within a few hours I was feeling just fine. This rapid change feels strange to me. No one (not even my therapist) had any idea what was happening for me internally though because I hid it.

I did ask my therapist about what could cause a sudden mood switch (I asked about middle age onset bipolar and the possibility that it could be an EMDR side effect-- she had done some EMDR with me the previous week) and she suggested it could have been EMDR. I will also say that it was actually getting set up for EMDR in an earlier session that brought about my adult realization about the incident when I was five. (My therapist didn’t know I had a trauma background when she set me up with EMDR initially because I had denied it; she had suggested EMDR though because I was struggling to make a connection.) The fact that getting set up for EMDR could have opened that floodgate feels weird to me. It also feels strange that a break up could have destabilized me so much, or that I’ll think something is just fine until suddenly it’s really not. I don’t know when I’ll have a stress reaction to things and sometimes I’ll just freeze. I feel like everything I’ve described so far though about my adult experiences could maybe be attributable to acute stress or depression. None of this is apparent on the outside though.

My therapist had me journal for two weeks and that led me to admitting my childhood robot identity, and realizing that I had a few panic attacks that I would not have recognized as panic attacks if I hadn’t been journaling. I would journal about both feeling all the ‘expected’ negative feelings, and feeling numb or detached from my feelings. I also journaled about how thinking I had any abuse background (from my parents) was weird and I questioned my interpretation/recollection of these events. My therapist says none of this ‘inner turmoil’ is apparent in how I present in therapy, and that she is concerned that I am not in touch with reality because I am questioning my recollection/interpretation of what my parents did to me. She has training in trauma but not in DDs.

I recognize I have inner turmoil and my inner narration will contradict itself, but I always hear my inner narration in my own voice and always refer to myself in the first person. I can sense my five year old self, the projection of Kevin that most everyone sees that says and looks like everything is fine and OK, my curmudgeonly old man (I am a curmudgeonly old man even though I’m only 36), and my broken self. My broken self has felt so much and can be numb, broken, depressed, and desperate to get better (that self wants ECT to snap out of depression quickly.) I think of these parts as archetypes though and I think everyone has archetypes inside of them whether or not they have a DD diagnosis. (I’m pagan and pagan practices will often work with archetypes.) I do feel though like I bought into the idea that the projection of Kevin is the real me, but a few days ago I realized that the broken Kevin is me. The image of Kevin is hard to give up though and the last few days I’ve been slipping into feeling that that is the real Kevin. I know this is identity confusion, but peeling back the curtain on my childhood experiences and feeling those feelings when I’ve denied them for so long has shaken my sense of self.

So maybe I should be screened for a DD? Thanks for any thoughts!

[1976kitchenfloor]

Kevin, I read this post late last night and was too tired to give you much of a reply. I am back again and reading your post because I found so much of what you describe to be significant to your question of whether you should be screened for dissociative disorder. Maybe you should send a copy of this post to your therapist.

I dont have to tell you that it is best for your therapy that you are honest about your concerns and questions.

It already sounds like you and your therapist are working on getting you more centered in the present and that is good no matter what your diagnosis is.

Take care.

[kevin_pc]

Thank you for replying! Yeah I'm going to look into doing a diagnostic interview. When I feel broken the thought of a diagnosis (whatever is is) is comforting because it suggests to me that things can be OK and I can learn. When I feel everything is OK though the thought of a diagnosis (DID or bipolar?) is scary because it says to me that this real and that I may 'lose control' and switch into my suicidal broken self. I've been feeling my scared five year old self when I think about it and just want to be hugged and held and told everything is going to be OK. But I know these are all ME. I'm just not sure where metaphor ends and where actual difference between these 'states' begins. Thanks for witnessing.

(((hugs)))

[kevin_pc]

Thanks

Originally Posted by omegalamed

(((hugs)))

Hi Kevin, Thank you for posting and welcome.

Is testing neccessary? I mean, if everything is functioning okay and it's not really affecting present life, do you want to go there?

But, if it is, then I would go there.

Somethings are usually best left alone while others must be confronted....and only you know the answer to that.

I wish you luck and hope. .

[kevin_pc]

Thanks. If it were just me that were affected I might leave it, but it's affecting others. I'm not being accountable to commitments/am taking on commitments that I can't fulfill. Community is one of the things I live for so it's a kick to figure this out.

Originally Posted by AlwaysChanging2

Hi Kevin, Thank you for posting and welcome.

Is testing neccessary? I mean, if everything is functioning okay and it's not really affecting present life, do you want to go there?

But, if it is, then I would go there.

Somethings are usually best left alone while others must be confronted....and only you know the answer to that.

I wish you luck and hope. .