My conundrum

I haven't been stable, ever, I think..
But right now I'm in a bit of a conundrum...

I feel as if there is a battle of worlds happening, but I'm not really included...

Parts of me want this, desperately.
Other parts of me want something else, desperately..

I'm feeling really left out, distant, and just trying to manage the best I can...

I don't like drinking, I dont feel like drinking... But I'm trying to drink one hoping it calms my nerves...

I'm feeling so strange :/
The medication is helping but i just feel so foggy, like before... even when i was in rehab it was really bad...

mood swings... or switching... how do you tell the differenc
dunnos...

..............

???

The difference between OSDD+ BPD and DID | Complex Trauma

If it's a mood swing, you'll feel your mood change for whatever reason.

If it's a switch, you shouldn't feel like you're the one experiencing that mood. Plus there are usually other signs if you have alters. Switches usually feel like nothing because you'll just black out and lose time, or if you're co-conscious it's like an extreme form of depersonalization and you're more along for the ride than experiencing it all firsthand. Do you know if you have alters, and co-consciousness with them?

It sounds like it's you who's having trouble with what you want, but you're kind of detached from it (probably from stress/anxiety) and have really depersonalized or dissociated from the situation so it feels like there's a battle going on.

Try to take some time to figure out what you want to do, and then find a way to stick with it. Is there someone you can talk to about the drinking? Do you still get support from rehab?

I dunno if I have alters or not...
I dunno what my problem is really

I just go through changes, and the changes feel compartmentalized...
As when I went through a severe depressive episode, I know it happened but I dont feel like it happened to me... Sort of like when something happens to a friend and you feel bad for them, but I'm rational... or try to be, so I know it must of been me, Im just having a hard time connecting to it... When I try, it makes me feel bad.

Today is not so good... I feel sick, depersonalized... but I feel depersonalization all of the time, Its not a rare symptom to me... so much that its almost my norm.

If I were more simple minded, I would just make my mind up on what to think it is, probably just listen to the doc... But I need to understand, its an obsession to know so that I can make it better... And any half assed answer isn't going to cut it, you know what I mean? So I keep going around and around, but not able to come up with a solution...

I am going to see my case manager tomorrow, have pdoc on the 24th, and going to set up an appointment with my therapist tomorrow.. I could call the rehab place but I dont feel like it because I dont think they can help very much.
Im not drinking, nor do I have the urge or desire to drink... I'm just trying to sort this out...

Im going to take a step back again, no new information currently so no need for me to be here...

Appreciate the information, Its just very confusing to me still... I think because a large part of me does not want to be D.I.D. or BPD ...

its just like... i feel different... things change... then i have residual feelings from how i was before... shame... guilt... envy...
how can i be like this?

im watching but im not here, no body is home, i dont know how the body is operating without a controller?
or is there a controller, a shell, a blank, that i am able to passively control?

but why do i be really cool and then change? im not so cool right now
things are kinda bad, im feeling sad... scared...
my body feels weird... i feel distant... my ears are ringing... ect ect...

am i blacking out? or losing touch? is this psychosis? im not hallucinating... or hearing voices... i just feel dead... robotic... operating under standard pretenses, a manual to survive... whats happening, you know?

i am just skipping around... like a scratched cd... i gone to the store... then i was at the store... then i rode back... now im here... but its all instant... its like, how did i be at the store? did i really go to the store? or have i been sitting here the whole time?


am i explaining this good at all?
i don't wanna be alone with this... my body feels weird...
im sober, and not gonna drown these feelings... but im afraid... afraid of blacking out, some one else taking over... its not fair, its just not fair

At first reading your post I was a bit upset for you. you just spent a month getting detoxed, sober and diagnosed and on the right treatment plans and your first post in this thread sounded like you have chosen to throw all that away and try to drink a drink to calm your nerves. then your posts are starting to get messed up sounding again, like you have decided to say to heck with treatment and all that hard work....

this is what I ......was.....going to post to you....

the bottom line is only .....you ..... can control you, only you can keep yourself from going through all this crap thats starting back up for you. you can either go off every which way again and none of us here can help you other than read your posts... or you can call your treatment providers and let them know you need their help.

then I read your other post here in this thread stating you have not actually taken a drink yet and you are in contact with your treatment providers with an appointment set and you will be contacting your therapist...

whew ok now I can relax a bit and say to you.... congrats in recognizing you need to contact your treatment providers, and stay on track.

I am also glad that you are deciding to take a step back from psych central. I was wondering if after going through detox, stabilization, and getting sobor and going through diagnosis and finding out you dont have dissociative disorders that you have Borderline Personality Disorder then coming on the dissociative boards and finding things that may sound like you, would cause you to start questioning yourself again and cause you to throw your treatment plans to the wind again and end up in the same boat you were before going inpatient.

we well be here where you are ready to be here. like I said before dissociation problems comes with many different things. having alters does not mean a person has a dissociative disorder any more. what matters is you follow your treatment providers and keep yourself on track of all that hard work you just accomplished inpatient. (by the way I dont only read threads where a person is having problems, I love hearing about success too. so please dont feel you have to be worse or having problems, if posting and reading about dissociative problems is throwing you off, its ok to turn your focus to the positives in you and others too...)

you do what you need to do and pop in occasionally to give us an update as you can.

You sound like you're experiencing a lot of the symptoms of depersonalization.

Do you have a therapist who you can work with? It might be helpful to learn some grounding skills to first get in touch with your physical body, then start to learn how to connect yourself with your feelings.

I've experienced a lot of the same things long before I knew about having DID. After a lot of therapy, I've started to learn how to connect my mind with my body, but it's hard and not natural. A lot of days I just float about and I have no idea where I am, but when I stop and realize where I am and think about it, it feels as if I've been there forever like what you described with the store.

i try the grounding skills, they make me feel more weird... like going into a trance... or hypnotized... i just try to keep moving so i can try to feel the body, when i stop and breathe and try to be all like relaxed and stuff i start to go into trance... i dont like that feeling, you know?

i told my T and i cant remember what she said... i think she said it get better with practice...? but i not sure...



i know she said i dont like to feel my feelings

i know im having a lot of depersonalization... i drank and drugged to cover it up... when you high and drunk it feel normal... like, ok, there a reason to feel strange... but being sober its like, scary..? sucky... feeling like this not my body, or im in the wrong place, i dont belong here i just dont know where i belong or what im doing here

i dont wanna drink or anything, i just confused...

I was going to write this in the other thread, but feel its more appropriate to let that one die since I wrote it in a certain state and don't remember writing it

I had appointment today with casemanager, we talked for about an hour about my experience in rehab, the medications they put me on, being sober, the future, my plans, recovery strategies, staying sober, ect ect...

But the weird thing is I had forgot my therapist, I couldnt remember her for the life of me... I forgot her name... I called her Meridith and thought it was her, my first therapist... then my case manager said megan, and I was like, Who is Megan?

I am going to try to remember to talk to my T about it... It was really embarrassing even though my case manager didnt notice... she probably thought I was talking about someone in rehab...

I don't understand whats happening to me. I'm trying so hard.
I know I'm not stupid... I just cant get a grasp on this...

Have any of you ever experienced something like that?
is there a name for it..?
amnesia? or retromemory? or reverting to previous states?

I dunno... Its scary because what if I forget my family, or if it happens for everyone and i just cant recall people?
I mean as soon as she said megan i was scared, because i knew that i had forgotten her name although i thought i was talking about meridith the whole time, like she was still my therapist...

im having a lot of somatic symptoms..
chest tightness... arms tingling...
hyperventilating... feeling on edge...

dunno why..

This thread was amongst the list of new posts I was reading so I decided to respond.I hope that's ok.

Do you know much about what you have been diagnosed with,Borderline Personality Disorder?Have your treatment providers explained what it is and what the symptoms are and why you were diagnosed with it?It just seems like you are super aware of everything that goes on and what you experience and are freaked out by all of it but not relating any of it to your illness.All the things you are describing are part of your BPD,even the dissociation and learning everything you can about it and ways to help yourself could make a big difference for you.

I have PTSD and learning everything I could about it really helped me.The dissociation used to freak me out and I used to really struggle with it until I worked with my psychologist on how to manage not just the dissociation but all the other symptoms that go along with it.I don't have a DD,the dissociation is a symptom of and part of my illness just as it is for you with BPD.

I just thought maybe if you learn all you can about it you won't freak out so much when you are experiencing symptoms.Understanding your illness and accepting what you experience is because of it and part of it will make it much easier to learn to manage.

The truth is I'm not sure what my diagnosis is anymore..
I think they still have me listed as Bipolar I... with a list of other diagnosis, PTSD, somatization, ADHD, emotional disturbance, ect ..

one of the things I want to do is talk to my therapist about my diagnosis so i can know whats up with me, have a name for it, instead of feeling so left out of the loop on whats going on with me...

I try to read as much as I can on these things, to the point that it becomes an obsession sometimes and gets out of hand... Thats happened a few times and I'm trying to be more in control over it ultimately and research in a more healthy fashion..

I relate with things from BPD, sure.. the emptyness, confusion... but i dont have explosive relationships... i do idolize sometimes and find myself thinking highly of a person i just met and then being dissapointed by them when i get to know them more that they werent what i wanted them to be i guess...?

I relate alot to the D.I.D. too though...
but I'm having a great deal of cognitive dissonance with whats happening inside of me, like you said I'm hyper aware, but stepped back from it, trying to figure it out while at the same time experiencing great distress...
So in that sense, i become very confused... as i Know exactly what is going on, and yet have no clue at the same time... does that make sense?

My mind is battling over sanity and insanity...
with the way my memory is im afraid im going to lose... im trying really hard and fighting really hard, but... i think its winning and im losing...

I know i dissociate a lot... and its getting worse...
I'm having a hard time staying conscious i think... im awake, but its not me, i get pushed to the back and auto pilot dude kicks in and takes over... or something like that... then someone will talk to me and ill snap back and be confused and like what just happened? I usually say things like "i wasnt paying attention" or try to pretend like i know whats going on

I just need to get rid of the dissonance... I guess thats what my therapist is for

Maybe I misunderstood, I thought you had already recieved a BPD dx.Yes,ask exactly what your diagnosis is then go from there.

i can say things confusing sometimes, its because i so confused... sorry

you can find out what your diagnosis is by looking on your discharge papers. they will have what your diagnosis is, what your medications are and things you need to do after discharge.

as for the memory problems you posted in this thread... yes sometimes I forget my treatment providers names and mix them up. my treatment providers tell me its part of my medication side effects.

my suggestion is to contact your treatment provider, they will explain to you what all these questions and feelings you are having with in you are called and they will be able to tell you what you need to do , to feel better

the place i went to didn't have diagnosticians

i only saw the psychiatrist 1 time and the medical doctor 2 times...
and the only discharge paper i got was for my medication instructions

I thought you already had been given a dx of BPD and didn't want to accept it because of the dissociation and was trying to fit your experiences into a different disorder like DID and why I said what I did about dissociation being a part of BPD for you just as it is part of PTSD for me.

You said you should just probably listen to the doc but I am confused about what the doc actually said.

I'm sorry for the confusion,I'm having a hard time understanding and following what you are saying.Sometimes when I'm having PTSD symptoms I'm easily confused like that.Sorry.

No need to be sorry on your end!

They actually haven't told me anything about my diagnosis since 2011 when the first pdoc diagnosed me with Bipolar I...
I researched all of my symptoms and then researched bipolar and refuted that diagnosis because it just didnt add up to me and I had/have a strong gut feeling/knowing that it isn't bipolar..

I tried to make it fit in with the bipolar diagnosis, but it just doesnt fit for me... in my mind, I cant make it make sense to be bipolar..

I've talked with my therapist(s) about it and they agreed with me that they don't think I have bipolar..

But none of them have told me what they think my diagnosis is or what they have diagnosed me with...

So I've been trying to make do with the limited information that they have given me all these years, which I don't understand as one would think they would want to educate me as much as possible on my diagnosis... especially when a patient is interested in learning as much as possible about it to further progression with treatment...

I had a psychological assessment due to my dissagreement with them on the Bipolar dx in which the psychologist also agreed that I dont have Bipolar, but that its Major Depressive disorder, ADHD, Somatization disorder, PTSD, and Generalized anxiety disorder...

He also mentioned that I have a Avoidant personality traits, but didn't mention anything about borderline...
After talking to my therapist a little bit and she learning about my self harm, she said that I have borderline traits.. in which i told her my confusion as to the psychologist saying i had Avoidant, then she saying borderline, inwhich she said something like Personality disorders tend to overlap

so... this is where I am at on my understanding, its a limited understanding as the "professionals" haven't tried to educate me so much at all, and that I have done my own research in trying to understand my experience...

I've came to the conclusion that they don't want to talk to me about the diagnosis' because they themselves have not come to a decision or understanding of the large amount of symptoms I have...

but one would think after 7 years of treatment, they should know something...

Sigh, I'm tired and just want some answers

I dont know about where you are but inpatient they have to place a diagnosis on your file. hospitals dont treat patients without knowing whats wrong with them, in the first 72 hours of inpatient at any hospital in the USA the treatment providers do an assessment to find out what that persons mental and physical health is, then develops a treatment plan. most times the patient doesnt know they are being observed and assessed. let me give you an example...

if patient can take their self to the rest room and on the daily report tells the nurse their bathrooming events, they know right there whether the patient has any real or perceived physical and mental health problems with memory, functioning, and much more.

if a patent can have a logical and organized conversation with other patients and be able to remember this patient or that patients name and remember what room they are in, what the daily schedule is, then they know they dont have cognitive and memory problems beyond the normal realm of forgetfulness.

there are many intake observe and assessments that are now done to find out what a persons mental and physical health problems are....

my point is you would know it if they felt you had a dissociative disorder. they would have assigned you a treatment plan that would focus on not being dissociated. they would have used the word "dissociated" "dissociation" and "dissociate"

even detox / sobriety inpatient programs have to do a basic intake assessment to gather what the patients mental and physical health is...otherwise they could risk harming/ killing the patient with the wrong meds, wrong treatment plans.

also...hospital records are public records. to find out whats on your hospital records all you need to do is contact the hospital records/ file room, just tell them your name and the dates that you were in the hospital and they will send you or tell you what your diagnosis's are.

Or,most hospital records can be accessed online now too.

If you don't already have an account,the info for creating one to gain access to records,pay your bill,etc. is usually included with your discharge forms

Just call and ask or look at your records and you will know what your diagnosis is.My husband was seeing a psychiatrist for a few years but didn't know what his diagnosis was or what he was being prescribed meds for.I asked him if he had depression since he was on an antidepressant and he said he wasn't sure so I told him to ask what his diagnosis was during his next visit,he did and was told and shown his records.It was as simple as that!

this program was messed up and chaotic... it wasnt that great...

i saw my diagnosis one time when talking to the medical doctor, but he quickly changed the page so i couldnt observe it... it was long... but i saw bipolar and stuff still on there...

You have the right to know exactly what your diagnosis is and see your records,so maybe you should do that so you will know instead of being unsure.

yeah, im going to ask on monday

i just get shy and bashful sometimes and sometimes i get scared and sometimes i just simply forget...

I hope you find out so you can put your mind at ease.I will check back here after Monday to see how it went.