[amandalouise]

I thought it was time to make a new thread about me I see some new people coming to the dissociative boards and I cant remember if I ever made a post about my co consciousness abilities....(I dont always bookmark/ subscribe to all my threads and posts)

Here where I live we have a psychological term called ...Co consciousness...

The psychological definition of this is to be aware of both external and the internal.

examples.....

knowing I am awake but yet aware that I feel tired, sleepy.
Knowing I am awake but my arm mentally feel numb and asleep.

In my normal every day life I am co conscious..

I wake up in the morning and I am aware of how I am feeling (internally) when I hear my children in the next room (externally). When I am eating breakfast I know that there is an egg, orange juice, toast and coffee on the table and know that my stomach feels hungry.

in other words co consciousness with my treatment provider and I, means to be aware of what is going on with me inside while at the same time knowing what is going on outside my body.

Some locations use another term ....mindful / mindfulness.....to mean the same identical thing and interchange able with the word co consciousness. for example in my yoga class..

for those that dont know my alters and I are now one whole person but how does this work when my alters were not integrated.... it means I and the one that is in control of the body is both aware of what is going on outside the body (externally) and also aware of what is going on inside the body (internally)

Example....

I (Amandalouise) am aware of what I am doing, that I am going to the store, that I am going to work, that traffic is hectic and feeling glad to take a taxi to work. I am aware that the taxi driver is telling me how much I owe as we reach my destination...

while I am aware of all these goings on externally I am also aware of Rainy's and other alters existence, I can hear her / them talking to me, I can feel her/ their fear (or other emotions) because it looks like a thunder storm is brewing.

When I dissociated my state of mind changed to being more internalized where I felt numb, spaced out and disconnected but yet I was still aware of the external side of things (using one alter for this example)....I am also aware that rainy is talking to someone, rainy is looking out the window, Rainy is answering the phone and other external things that come with being in control of the body and that alters sense of agency. while dissociated (numb, spaced out and disconnected) I can also hear and know of the existence of other alters and they me, While Rainy is in control she is aware of me, my existence, other alters and their existence what we are saying to her.

my treatment providers called my co consciousness abilities to be limited. that means I was not aware internally or externally of every single one of my alters,

with some of my alters I had no awareness of their existence, what they did, how they did it, what they felt, what they said... everything was just not there. it was this lack of co consciousness with these alters that caused me to have memory problems beyond the normal amount of memory problems that every human being has.

doubting or denying their existence... i could not deny or doubt Rainy's existence because I was co conscious with her. to doubt or deny her existence to me would have been like saying Rainy isnt answering that phone when in reality she really was in control and answering that phone. To doubt and deny Rainy's existence for me would have been like denying my own existence of being dissociated... (if she didnt exist and wasnt in control of the body then i would not be feeling numb spaced out and disconnected to the point where she would have taken control) in other words being co conscious with Rainy and then denying/ doubting her existence would have cancelled out my having DID and dissociating. why because I was co conscious (aware/ mindful) with and of her.

on the other hand when it came to my alter "Shame" (not alters real name) I was not co conscious (I amandalouise) was not internally and externally aware of shame's existence, what she did , how she did it, why she did it, how she was feeling, ...) therefore when anyone told me Shame said this or Shame self injured, or Shamed did or felt that I was able to doubt and deny those things. why because I had no internal and external connections telling me that Shame really existed.

I know I have said it before but it sure fits where co consciousness and DID is concerned... there's more to being DID and co consciousness then a person can find online. (example this is just a small snippet of what co consciousness is with in me and in some locations what I described is called psychosis, hallucinating, delusions depending upon ones own mental and physical and medicinal problems and what ones own treatment provider goes by)

my point is that....If you are not sure whether you are co conscious or not, have a disorder or not the best thing to do is to contact ones own treatment providers.