DDNOS? Or am I making things up?

Okay. This is gonna be a long one.
Trigger warnings for sexual abuse among some other things up ahead.

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For starters, I am a victim of childhood sexual abuse. Around the age of six or seven, I was raped repeatedly by a family friend over the course of a few months.

I've also been abused emotionally throughout my lifetime, causing me to suffer intense abandonment issues. I've been told too many times for me to count that people truly cared about me, only for them to turn around and reveal that they'd been lying to me or for them to leave me when I needed them most.

I've been diagnosed with PTSD for the childhood sexual abuse, but I'm certain I've been traumatized by the repeated abandonment as well.

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Now that my history of abuse is out of the way, I can get onto where the dissociative symptoms started.

I think the first time I noticed anything close to an alter appearing was around my eighth grade year.

Now, I don't call them alters necessarily, because they're not quite like an alter at all, though they do share some traits. I'll explain in more detail later.

But, at the beginning of my eighth grade year, I began experiencing violent thoughts. Most often the thoughts were of desires to hurt or kill other students, and they were extremely strong feelings. At first, it would seem like these feelings were my own, but, that didn't feel quite right. There was this slight feeling that they didn't quite belong to me.

This was when I started drawing pictures of Lily. Lily was a character that I had made up, as someone of an artistic nature often does. I drew her often and she was pretty much a manifestation of these thoughts I was having.

Then, along with those violent thoughts, I began to feel another presence. I could visualize Lily in my mind, and it felt like those thoughts were coming directly from her. This is where it started to feel almost like she was an alter, but not quite. We shared a consciousness and never had any loss of memories, but it felt like Lily had control.

It's difficult to explain the exact feeling, but it's almost as though Lily's thoughts were replacing my own. We were separate, yet the same person. The only way I can describe it is as if Lily was acting through me. I was still myself, but acting on Lily's thoughts.

I never actually acted on her violence, but I would often find my mannerisms and choice of words were a reflection of how Lily would speak and act, rather than how I would. I often felt really badly about something I said when Lily was "in control".

Lily disappeared for a long time. Maybe around a year or so? The feelings came back, and so did Lily, but in the following months, so did some other feelings. They didn't have names, but they were definitely other entities like Lily. I would find myself acting in different ways with different mannerisms and speech patterns, but still feel mostly like myself. It didn't really bother me, though, because I hardly noticed it, aside from Lily.

A couple years after that, and many of the others disappeared, Lily still remaining. But, different ones appeared, but this time, they were more complete, with names and faces. I've cycled through over thirty that I've counted that have appeared and disappeared in the last couple years. Too many to name, and if I'm being honest, many of them I don't quite remember. Though, most of them seemed to be personalities based off of fictional characters.

But with these new ones, I began to become more aware of Lily and what she possibly might be, as well as the others. Though, the others didn't appear until I'd done some digging to figure out what Lily was. It feels to me like my mind might have made them up, considering they didn't all begin appearing and disappearing until after I started looking into dissociative disorders.

But, they all had their own likes and dislikes, mannerisms, speech patterns, moods and feelings. Some even had different ways of writing. I remember one named Frasier preferred to write only in cursive.

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Since starting anti-psychotic medication, my mind has grown very quiet. Sometimes I think I feel the presence of another one of them, but I'm not really sure. I really miss the company of them, but at the same time, I did have quite a few violent ones that would rather have me dead.

I just want to know if anyone has had similar entities like these or if maybe I could be making this all up in my head? Or maybe they were just voices inside my head? I have been diagnosed with depression with psychotic features. I'm just very lost and confused about all of this. I'd just like some secondary opinions from those who might experience something similar.

I would have taken inventory, listened inside journaled it to rule out DDNOS or DID.. I just don't believe in suppressing of alters with medication UNLESS your losing control work functioning etc. The internal chaos only last a few then it goes away on it's own with talk therapy/journaling it settles and all is well. It may take longer to realize what is happening if in fact it is DDNOS. At this point, you are going to have to go with the flow. Nobody really gave me a good explanation of the inner world.....I have my thoughts on it's benefits why I would rather stay off anti-psychotics. I actually got to meet a bunch before the psychiatrist and anti psychotics were ever know about. My first interactions with a psychiatrist where only for anti depression and anti anxiety there was no voices at all. Then about 1 year later the inner world got here and over loaded me, nobody told me a dx PTSD and depression symptoms came complete with voices. By that time, I enjoyed what I was hearing and learning about alters. It was too late then I was already in a break down. Actually in 2012, I remembered my first counselor told me I had Dissociative Identity Disorder, so it all worked out, it just wasn't something that I keep in mind on a day to day basis cause I didn't have too I wasn't experiencing it to where there was significant distress day to day. Remember DID is coping mechanism, unless you don't look the part most times it really doesn't need to get diagnosed.

What you are describing could be a dissociative disorder or a psychotic thing. I had to take a whole bunch of tests to be diagnosed DID.
Regardless, those parts probably have something to tell you. Journaling was a good tool to give them each a chance to speak.
I've been told that there is no med that helps with DID, and the antipsychotic and antidepressant and anti anxiety meds that I have tried did not quiet down the parts. So maybe the fact that you are responding to the meds means you are not dissociating. Have you asked your dr or therapist?

like some have said, it could be either dissociative related or psychosis, etc.

from my understanding, if it is dissociative, meds won't generally cause alters/parts to go away/be quiet, etc. sometimes, it might, but generally i don't think so.

when i took antipsychotics (zyprexa/olanzapine, risperdal, or seroquel), the dissociation did not lessen, and the others also were still there and active.

you described violent thoughts, etc. i also had that kind of thing happen. i believe it was a mix of OCD and trauma related stuff as i had other OCD traits along with it and other types of urges, images, etc. so it's possible for you that it could also be an extension of a PTSD issue and anxiety or something. just a guess anyway.

talking to a professional about it more in depth might help.

the title of your post.... DDNOS or are you making this up....

only you and treatment providers (doctors, therapists psychiatrists ) in your own location know whether you are making something up or not and whether you have a mental disorder or not...

we cant tell you what this is in you. but we can tell you what we know and what jumps out in your posts...

the first thing that jumps out at me is your location ....you have your location set as United States of america..

based on your location even if you do decide to see a treatment provider DDNOS wont be what they diagnose you with. this isnt because your problems are or are not dissociative. its just a legality thing. in 2013 some mental disorders got changed....some got renamed, some got combined with other mental disorders and are now called by the mental disorder they were combined with leaving some mental disorder names not being used any more... DDNOS is one of those mental disorders that got changed. so the name DDNOS is no longer used in the USA.

at the bottom of my post are some links. one of these links is about the dissociative disorder names the USA now uses and what they are (what treatment providers go by when diagnosing these mental disorders in the USA)

another thing i can tell you is that none of the .....diagnostics.....for any dissociative disorders include violence\violent behavior. so if you are worried about that, you can relax, based on ....just the violent behavior.... wont get you diagnosed with a dissociative disorder.

what else i can tell you is that what you posted can be any number of normal, mental or physical health problems.. if you goggle your symptoms there are literally millions of things this can be.

the best thing to do is if this continues to bother you is to contact your doctors who can make the diagnosis of what this is in you and get you treated for it if needed.

Journaling was actually the main way we communicated. Communicating inside the headspace was really... the only way I can describe it is.. clogged up? It was like there was a bunch of stuff in the way and everything became muffled whenever we tried to communicate. We'd basically write back and forth on paper a lot to communicate whenever things were too muffled in the headspace.

Recently actually, I think I saw someone new in the headspace. Like, I got these glimpses in my mind of this person that was like a chameleon. They were becoming basically invisible. Though, I'm starting to think maybe everything is just made up in my head, seems how they almost always only exist whenever I'm thinking about them.

I just don't know anymore. It's driving me crazy because I can't tell what's real or fake. I thought I felt Lily again last night, but in all likelihood it's probably nothing. I'd like to believe that things just quited down on their own, which has happened before with Lily's disappearance for a whole year. I don't know what to believe, though

I feel like I'm just being an insensitive asshole and faking everything. But, I can't even tell if I'm faking it!

Hi Cacatuidae, welcome to PC!

I couldn't tell you what it is or isn't, but, I took anti-psychotics for a little while and it didn't seem to affect the Others in any way....it just made us pass out. Besides, I know that I'm not psychotic...a little bipolarish, but thats just a mood thing.

I don't know....I'm co-conscience and aware and can head talk to the Others, some aren't so much, but we all take turns doing the body thing. I feel that only a multiple will know that they are a multiple. It took us a while after 30 years of denial till we finally faced the truth about a year ago when we was like 46 even though we didn't want to believe it at 13. Talk about a reason to drug and drink a slow death which we did for 35 years.

Sometimes I can sit and watch us do things in a disconnected way as an Other runs the body. Who ever runs the body takes over the conscious...it becomes theirs to use.

We know when we switch, but memories are very tricky- they stay with the one that experienced them....but we still lose a lot of our own but yet can pull others memories up sometimes like we have a sharing account.

I can feel the pressure from the others if they are feeling an emotion. We are very switchy because everyhing in life is a trigger for us from moment to moment.

I think when it comes to "faking it", there is a sense of purpose to it. You can look at it another way and say that you are experiencing something that you are not sure of what it is.

I don't know what to tell you hon, but keep learning, researching, talking to your T and discover your self.

heres a bit of info for you...

here in america dissociation is a ....reaction....to a trigger....something happens to cause a person to feel dissociated.

example when I am stressed out or upset (trigger) I will feel numb, spaced out. foggy...disconnected. sometimes with a .....feeling.... that I am not all here or that the world around me .....feels....different than it really is, I know whats real and what isnt. (with dissociation reality testing remains in tact.)

thats an example of normal dissociation. from there it moves into what america calls the dissociative disorders... in other words the dissociation symptoms become so bad that they are called a disorder.

when a person has the disorder levels of dissociation it affects every aspect of the persons life not just when they are alone, drawing and writing.

here in my location ...Alters with DID and OSDD can not be seen like you would your parents, brothers and sisters. a person can imagine what they would look like but seeing things other people can not see in my location is called hallucinating, delusions, psychosis, psychotic. here you cant play with, hold or otherwise physically touch dissociative type alters. they all share one body. when one has taken control of the body the others can sometimes see what that one in control is doing, but they dont literally see them like you would sitting across the dinner table looking at your parents or friends.

here is an example of what having Dissociative disorder alters look like...
(before my alters all became one with me)

sitting at work, I get stressed out, I feel numb, spaced out and disconnected. the next moment I look around and I find I am at home eating dinner with my wife. I get to work and find my work that I was doing the day before was done.

at a relatives house adult dinner party. it begins to thunder. I start feeling numb spaced out and like everything is far away from me(disconnected) then I am seeing things from far away as I hear a voice (my alter Rainy) saying lets go home, I want to watch little mermaid with my blanket wanna come.(I dont see rainy because its all one body)

you said your doctors have diagnosed you with PTSD and you are on anti psychotic medication. the anti psychotic meds makes these others of your's go away. here in my location that would tell a treatment provider that this is not DID,OSDD or any dissociative type alter because there is no medication to make dissociative alters go away.

my suggestion is to just continue going according to what your own treatment providers are treating you for. since the psychosis medication is working you can probably (just a guess here ) rest assured you dont have a dissociative disorder. that what ever dissociative problems you do have is being taken care of.

Hi and to PC
I think the other posters have already given you alot of information to work with. And only a proffesional can determine whether or not your identity disturbances fall under a Dissociative Disorder or not. It is important if you are having daily functioning and/or relationship issues due to your symptoms to seek full, physical, neurological, and psychiatric evaluations, as identity disturbances can be a symptom of many different illnesses and disorders. Regardless of whether or not you do suffer from a DD, I want to make sure you feel welcome to post on this forum if this is where you feel most comfortable discussing your problems. Please check out the FAQ Tab to learn the posting icons and codes. As DD are trauma related it is important, as much as posible ,to be mindful of clearly marking/hiding text esp re: specifics of abuse and violent thoughts or behaviours as reading these experiences w/o warning can be extremely distressing and triggering to other members. Please Keep on Writing! And i hope you are able to find some answers soon and that you feel helped suported and understood here at PC.