There is no "me"

I've tried to sort this out.

I don't think "I" even meet with my counselor each week. I don't have words to explain.

It feels like there are three parts of me that rotate for emotions.

The Runner part of me is emotionless and it feels like that's the part of me that shifts for my appointment with him.

The other parts have come forward before, during my appointment time, and that's when things get weird.

I can't piece things together when that happens.

I'm not really sure what to do with this.

It feels like too much is becoming "real" and I'm not sure what to do with it.

I'm feeling strong in some areas and other places are feeling like a monkey circus.

Any thoughts?

I think this is what dissociative disorders are like. The sense of self is dissociated. The I-ness of being is not unified. it is fragmented and split off.
The strongest "thought" I have about your post is Self Protection.

This makes total sense. We are just a conglomeration of parts that react to situations, scenerios and triggers: people, places, and things.

The "I" is the conscious which is shared which makes us co-conscious....unless standing alone, watching.

I too can see when it wasn't me being present because the memories that flash to mind are detached, dreamy, and faded. Even in the present I feel like I'm in the backseat watching.

It seems that the more consciously aware of how our system functions...the more blatant it becomes....this is why I feel like a Watcher.

I just accept it that this is how it is because if I had any control over it...I would of changed it a long time ago.

It's good I guess that you are seeing this....but I still feel (and long for) that ignorance is bliss.

Thank you for your replies.

I'm seeing it now as something that would make sense in dealing with dissociation. Like you said Amyjay, " The sense of self is dissociated."

That leads me to another question.

Is it healable?

I guess that's integration, or co conscious living with all the parts respecting each other? Like you described in your post AC.

It kind of makes me feel like Humpty Dumpty. Ouch!

Thinking of that, leads me to another question that is on my mind.

When I'm talking with my counselor, sometimes I have the feeling that there are 2 of us there. Still figuring that out.

Sometimes I get really triggered and feel the anxiousness and other feelings that go along with it.

My counselor helps me go through steps to ground myself. It helps me and I feel "better" but is it "me" or is there a shift and someone steps forward?

If I don't have a sense of "self"/"me" how can I ground myself?

Is it really grounding or is it shifting/rotating another part forward?

Geez, that sounds too complicated! I hope it makes sense.

It feels like if it was "me" there talking with my counselor, my memories of my appointment time with him would not be so fragmented most of the time. I do remember bits and pieces, sometimes more than others, but it's not something I can sit down and recall in fluidity. It's more like chapters in a book's index with not much content in each chapter.

He can recall something for me, and then I remember it if I'm prompted to. Is that the other part of me that was there with me, stepping in and recalling it?

Maybe I also have the idea of grounding wrong.

I thought that grounding was bringing your conscious state of nowness into yourself. Being there in that moment as "me"

Maybe it has nothing to do with a sense of self. Maybe it's just settling the body from the anxiousness going on inside of it.

I don't know.

I sorta relate to some of this

But I'm ****ing clueless, the therapist, doctor, shrink I saw all confirmed this

(UK )

Thank you Fuzzy!

It is quite confusing.

i have such subtle changes at times that i don't even realize them..i used to think i was a lot more 'me' but have realized it is more subtle than i thought.

i experience in sessions the same kind of thing where i don't recall the whole thing and where it is like different parts are there (but with me). sometimes i can feel the shifts, but other times i cannot in the moment and only after the session realize something happened.

i have had it the last while that each time i go, things feel different than each time before..i couldn't figure out if it was something about the therapist that was different..but that couldn't be...so i assume it is me that is different. it is a strange feeling.

It's so fluid and I don't it realize it sometime myself until after the fact.

Two weeks ago it was really ? - I don't know what word to describe it.

I was there. We were talking. Then my voice didn't sound like mine.

I vaguely remember bits of the rest of my time with my counselor. The drive home was pretty floaty.

The next day is when it erupted in my mind.

What the heck happened?!?

I felt like I was there but I wasn't really. Passenger mode maybe?

I talked with my counselor about it this past week. He said he had no clue. What!!??

That is a bit distressing to me.

He told me that I had learned to hide it when it happens. Protective instinct I guess.

It feels like there are things that are really up in my face right now. I'm believing that it's understanding and healing.

Understanding does bring healing is my thought.

I pray it's true.

For some reason your thought about Self Protection has been on my mind all day.

I'm just curious and it may be a stupid question, but what do you mean by Self Protection?

This is most of my experience, especially in therapy. I feel parts come in and out, watch, visit, add comments, sometimes just come forward and start talking with T. It used to be more distressing than it is now that I know them better...or most of them. There are really weird times when I know it's someone else talking with T but I'm still there, and I have no idea who it is and I can't feel them, I just know that isn't me. And times when we switched and T could tell but whoever it was played it off and said they're me. I was just watching. When these things happen I'll usually be able to remember what happened immediately after but the memory fades so fast that even an hour later I'm just able to get fragments. Maybe just one sentence out of the whole conversation. I used to say I hardly ever lose time but I do pretty often if you count that type of memory loss.

I'm usually the one who recalls things for other parts. Some have a limited vocabulary or little knowledge of the subject of conversation, and they'll pick up the information from me. Other times I'm watching and thinking at them but it's like they can't hear me. Some memories are clearer when certain ones are close, but later those memories are all choppy again. Especially for those conversations that fade. I can't remember a conversation from therapy hardly at all, then T refers to it and I can remember.

yup. mine also has said she doesn't notice any changes. it both upset me and made me confused and thinking that she wasn't paying close enough attention. but i guess considering i don't always know the changes, she wouldn't either. she also told me to tell her when i feel the changes....but that is hard to do because even if i am aware of it in the moment, it is like a kind of shock or fear, etc. and i am unable to tell her.

i would have to agree that it likely is related to protecting, hiding, etc. as that is the whole point of having other parts and DID, to protect us, to blend in (usually anyway), etc.

i pondered that too a lot (still do at times) because i can still end up comparing my experience to others who are more overt and have experiences i don't...which is just silly to compare to...and why would my experience be so 'quiet' etc. and it comes down to survival and hiding. so however it is is how it is supposed to be and is completely okay.

I am glad I am not alone in how confusing this all is. I am new to being aware of parts and I am also just beginning to grasp what is happening. I am completely befuddled most of the time when I try to understand all this, I find it easier for me to just take a minute at a time and see what happens next. I am reading Getting Through The Day by Nancy Napier and it is helping me understand what is happening but more useful to me are the tools she presents.

I can so relate to this and especially the bolded part. I can't remember what was talked about straight afterwards though but bits and pieces come back to me over the next few days. Therapy has made me much more aware of how much time I lose too.
My T is very good at noticing subtle changes she usually picks up on our switches pretty quickly even the really subtle ones. It is so confusing though. In therapy i get a lot of notme thoughts and feelings like sometimes I am talking but i have no idea what I am saying before during or after I say it!

Grounding...I wish I knew. We took a shave yesterday and it was like watching a presentation in the mirror, and my only contribution was "don't cut the lip!". How do you ground out of that when it really wasn't me doing it? I was detached, had no control of the action, felt no control...like it was in automatic. :/

When the lips move and words comes out...who is that? I get a flash of a topic, or action...then the body does the rest talking in it's own way...and I can be slipping in and out as it happens becoming the front mind and then pulling back wondering why did I say that that way or wishing to drop dead, lol.

Even typing now seems to be automatic as I dictate....is that really me doing things like this effortlessly? Maybe it is typing skills...but the disconnect makes it questionable.

As a teenager...our system was in fear of being noticed...to be outted as a weirdo (was anyways)...to stay hidden....so we took an inner vow of silence of expressing our individuality. We came across as very quiet, showing little to no emotions...trying to fool ourselves and the public eye.

Soon...after awhile...we actually forgot being a multiple...but lived on asking self why am I so quirky? It wasn't but a few years ago when the spouse mentioned the United States of Tara show that we were once again reminded of the term of "multiple personalities"...then we in an instant let go of our facade.

Sometimes people just deal with one alter....or singletons have no comprehesion of multiplicity that it just never is something one would consider unless it was very obvious like it's starting to become about us...the way we dress, act, talk, think, walk....but some of them still don't get it and just want to beat you up for geing odd.

At work...the carpenter does his job with devout dedication, but can't do public relations, so we have Steve for that...hence, we can barely talk and work at the same time because of it taking both...but when we do....we can barely manage functioning that it becomes dangerous for our physical well being like operating a guardless saw, so we generally stop working. We have always been accused of having a one track mind, but what really is happening is we are constantly switching tracks to deal with the moment to moment life...switching seamlessly...but all in all...we still appear to be a singleton to the ignorant.

Often I feel a twinge in the eye as a split second of dissociation happens in switching....often playing catch up to what's happening in reality at the moment...a lot of instant detective work happening : time, place, people, situation, conversation, action, mid sentence often times, topic being discussed at hand...popping in and out like popcorn...

I experience this, on different levels, pretty often.

I agree with you. How do you ground out of a place like that?

It was a fight last week to get to my counselor's office. I could feel like I wasn't all there.

I looked at my hands on the steering wheel and they didn't seem to be my hands. It was like I was looking through someone else's eyes at them. Things on the road were either going by too fast or too slow.

I had some cinnamon candy, that I usually can't keep in my mouth because they are too hot. I ate 4 of them on the drive there.

I wasn't really grounded when I got there, but maybe it helped some? I don't know.

I can't really remember too much about what we talked about. I do remember telling him about the candy. Maybe because a part of me was in pain from the cinnamon. Lol!!

And this too shall pass, I am sorry it is tough at the moment....