Switching

As far as I know, I don't switch often. I can go for months without it occurring. Well, this last hospital admission, I think it happened a few times. That's not common for me but not necessarily surprising. The only times I switch is when I'm so hypervigilant and paranoid that I become too overwhelmed to handle it. Only twice was it co-concious, at least that I can remember. Now I'm home and I feel securely in the driver's seat. I did feel myself loosing control last night, though and I'm not sure why since I wasn't triggered by anything or vastly overwhelmed. Maybe I just lost strength to stay conscious during my hospital stay, I don't know.

Anyway, how often do you switch and when you do, do you ever have control over it or do you just let it flow?

For us, it's an everyday thing, pretty much. Mostly, we don't have control over it, and lately, coconsciousness has been nonexistent. The insiders have been trying to make it better, from what I can tell. Most recently, they have had one or two insiders out with me. It's been helping with being able to hear the inside, but I still can't communicate with them.

Its an everyday thing for me too. I have parts that work parts that interact with family parts that interact in certain situations etc. i am more aware and coconscious than I used to be but i still have a lot of gaps in my day-to-day life. I really don't have control over it at all. It just happens. A lot of the time i don't even know it is happening. When I have recorded my therapy sessions I can hear how often I switch in therapy without even knowing about it.

How often I switch depends upon many factors. For instance, my brother-in-law and his fiance, who live six hours away, called last night and asked me if I would marry them today. I said yes, and they drove up this morning. They are here right now and plan on staying for three to four days. Barring something cataclysmic, I'll be out for the next three to four days while they are here.

I have a little who I am co-conscious with and who regularly comes out. How often? It varies at the best of times but by way of an example, she and I are both a bit of a smart you-know-what, but we have very different sense of humors. So, co-conscious we might watch a movie together with my wife and something strikes us funny. She responds to the scene with a smart aleck comment or joke and I laugh. My wife turns to me and asks me what was funny. Often, we'll switch right then and Sonseearae will tell her what she was thinking, sometimes I'll report the thought.

For the ones with whom we have no co-consciousness, a trigger will bring them forth, but often there are no triggers which would facilitate someone else's arrival for days or even weeks. Other times, they might be out most of the day for extended periods at a time. Still other times, they might be out a hundred times for a minute or two throughout the day. An example of this last situation, if I had been in Charleston, South Carolina a few weeks ago, I would have been switching rapidly every time I sensed immediate danger to someone who has never failed to quickly neutralize dangerous situations - but in my day to day life, he doesn't spend a great deal of time out and about.

I do not switch often, either. I do not understand the switching thing with me. It is extremely weird. It is so weird that sometimes I think that I am actually being experimented on with hypnosis. But I know that I can switch when no one is triggering me. People cannot tell one personality from another with me. So I try to tell people that with me it is blips of amnesia more than extreme differences in personalities. I try to tell people to look for memory problems. To see memory problems, your loved ones have to communicate with you every day understanding that you are having little blips of amnesia.

I am pretty sure nobody other than my therapist knows when I switch and even then she often misses it. I haven't even told anyone else about my DID. Other people would just see me as being "moody" I think.
Do YOU know when you switch?

all day throughhout the day.

No. At the time I have total amnesia. The only way that learned is somehow some of the amnesia barriers came down. That happened between 1992 and 1999. I recovered some memories of how I behaved in these other states. I recovered some memories of conversations and behavior that I did not know about when it happened. But there is still no co-consciousness.

I know that I have child personalities. Let me tell you how I know. When I was a teenager a liquor store opened up in Gainesville, Georgia. Three of my friends and I drove up there and bought two fifths of Jack Daniels. On the drive back to Buford which is only about thirty to forty minutes drive we got into a chugging game. I went away.

When I next became aware I was in my parents house in my bed. I was sick as a dog. I had been beaten up. As it turned out I was beaten up by my friends on the side of the expressway. Then my Dad beat the crap out of me with a belt while I was passed out in my bed. He had found my friends trying to take me into the Mc Donalds in Buford to go to the bathroom. He threw me into the car and took me home.

Later I asked my friends why they beat me up. They said that I started to talk like a baby and it pissed them off. I still don't know what truly happened. At the time I did not know anything about dissociative disorders. I did not even know how mentally ill I was because my parents never talked to me.

We were forced the intensive way so we switch often....It probably has lead us to our puzzle pieces earlier than most, so it isn't without some triumphs. We take it in strides and am okay with it.

We're a switchy bunch. It's daily for sure, sometimes hourly or more. We don't have to be set off to flip flop or nothin. Right now I got a few others up near the surface payin mind to what I'm doin. If one of em was particularly interested they might grab the reigns, so to speak and I'd be ridin shot gun. I see no point in fightin it since I have nothin real important happening today and they're pretty good about doin life, but I can fight it to a degree with some of em should the need arise, but I feel like a dictator when I do that so I don't like to.

That said, theres a lot of em I can't feel around or tell if they are gonna come and take control and I can't try to fight that if I decide I want to. And then if somethin does set me off, I'm not going to be in a place mentally or emotionally where I'm thinking about keeping control so that's when whoever is attending to the situation shows up to attend and there's nothing I can do about that either.

So yeah, a lot and both. Lol.

Tay

I'm sorry that you went through this.

Switching to us is a moment to moment thing: everything is a trigger to us- it's never only just me.

I wish I knew how to not let the others take over...but that's how we operate. It feels like our mind has gone through a food processor and that sparks are jumping everywhere.

Sometimes it takes great force and trickery to not switch...but that may last a day or so....which then evidence that we aren't equipped to do that.

It's all about survival. We aren't the fittest, but we can manage.

Sometimes we go weeks without switching, sometimes we switch several times in a day. Stress makes us really switchy, but sometimes when things are okay someone wants to come out and enjoy it. Like, Sire took almost 24 hours yesterday, like a vacation from being on the inside. He was really locked in, and it caused him quite a bit of dizziness and an awful headache to let someone else out for a few minutes. I'm not sure what makes the difference. Sometimes we switch and I have no idea, but I don't usually have total amnesia, I just can't think or judge. Later on I usually know who was out and what they were up to.

Today we had our second full session with the new therapist and we just switched constantly... every sentence, mid-sentence, even sitting there switching from one to the other between sentences. What a joke I am. I feel like I couldn't even complete a full darned sentence it was all so unstable. Who knows what was even said to her. Not me.

You're not a joke. Everyone must have just been eager to share but couldn't wait. I'm sorry it was a rough but I suppose it'll get easier with each session.

Hmm thanks. It wasn't eagerness to share though. We don't know this woman. We had a challenging week (demands from abusers and intense demands at work) and terminated our real t last week. I think it was more panic and confusion. I hope it gets easier. I don't know if it will or not.

In one of my first sessions with my therapist I had rolling somatic flashbacks and an awful rough and unexpected switch to a terrified child alter. That was also due to panic and confusion. Your experience is totally understandable. It did get easier, and I think it will for you.

switching is very complicated for me i switch very often nearly every single day, and since nobody knows i have this I'm in high school and for me its hard to tell when im switching or just dazing off they feel about the same until i come out and its the end of the day. i wish there was someway i could stop it every time, but i also would feel guilty if my others could never come out