[mightyflytacos]

So... I have PTSD that is the consequence of a bad event back when I was 9-years old (I am now 28-years old). I also have been diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar Type I with Psychotic Features. Anyways, I assumed that whatever happened over the summer was due to some weird PTSD stuff and my other mental health conditions. I was already immensely stressed out and was not coping well with my life. Then "the straw broke the camel's back", I suppose. This was the decline.

I think finally opened up about my trauma to my therapist. I'm very avoidant about it and never talk or speak about it. I do not remember much of it either. My therapist and I concluded that I dissociated during the event which has somehow led to me having a really bad habit of dissociating all the time. We also discovered that I have dissociated amnesia because I cannot remember about 6-months afterwards. My brother talked about us having a blind therapist with a cat and that I lived with my aunt for months. I remember none of this and thought he was joking.

So, that sucks. That night (after seeing my therapist), I lied down on my sofa and made myself remember. I felt like it was in there somewhere. I remembered and then I started having some MAJOR problems for months. I was pretty much dissociated the entire summer. Probably from July until early November. I concluded that it was just depersonalization and derealization because I was straight up tripping. I did not recognize myself in the mirror and felt like my body did not belong to me and that it was someone else's. I kept a diary and it's just full of my anxiety and not feeling well and feeling weird.

But 2 of my entries are weird. The tone is kinda cold and disconnected. The entries read kinda like... Apathetic? But then it says things such as "I need to do this and that. My room is a mess. We should organize." And then later in the entry it says something like: "I am watching MSNBC because it is what she would normally do. I am watching it because that is what she likes to watch. I am attempting to enjoy myself like her. I am bored and change the channel"

This only happened for 2-entries and then stopped. I am thinking maybe I was just out of it. I often have issues with voices talking in my head, which are not me. I know that they aren't me. I have concluded that it might be my bipolar disorder. They are often talking about me or arguing with each other. During the summer, one started yelling at me when I told it to shut up.

My psychiatrist fixed my meds and it went away. Weirdly enough, I miss the chattering because it's been super quiet for awhile. I still do not understand WTF that was or why I was behaving that way. Does that sound like DID to you or was I just tripping balls 24/7?

DID only forms from traumatic events that happen in very early childhood. What you experienced certainly sounds distressing, but does not sound like DID to me.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by mightyflytacos

So... I have PTSD that is the consequence of a bad event back when I was 9-years old (I am now 28-years old). I also have been diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar Type I with Psychotic Features. Anyways, I assumed that whatever happened over the summer was due to some weird PTSD stuff and my other mental health conditions. I was already immensely stressed out and was not coping well with my life. Then "the straw broke the camel's back", I suppose. This was the decline.

I think finally opened up about my trauma to my therapist. I'm very avoidant about it and never talk or speak about it. I do not remember much of it either. My therapist and I concluded that I dissociated during the event which has somehow led to me having a really bad habit of dissociating all the time. We also discovered that I have dissociated amnesia because I cannot remember about 6-months afterwards. My brother talked about us having a blind therapist with a cat and that I lived with my aunt for months. I remember none of this and thought he was joking.

So, that sucks. That night (after seeing my therapist), I lied down on my sofa and made myself remember. I felt like it was in there somewhere. I remembered and then I started having some MAJOR problems for months. I was pretty much dissociated the entire summer. Probably from July until early November. I concluded that it was just depersonalization and derealization because I was straight up tripping. I did not recognize myself in the mirror and felt like my body did not belong to me and that it was someone else's. I kept a diary and it's just full of my anxiety and not feeling well and feeling weird.

But 2 of my entries are weird. The tone is kinda cold and disconnected. The entries read kinda like... Apathetic? But then it says things such as "I need to do this and that. My room is a mess. We should organize." And then later in the entry it says something like: "I am watching MSNBC because it is what she would normally do. I am watching it because that is what she likes to watch. I am attempting to enjoy myself like her. I am bored and change the channel"

This only happened for 2-entries and then stopped. I am thinking maybe I was just out of it. I often have issues with voices talking in my head, which are not me. I know that they aren't me. I have concluded that it might be my bipolar disorder. They are often talking about me or arguing with each other. During the summer, one started yelling at me when I told it to shut up.

My psychiatrist fixed my meds and it went away. Weirdly enough, I miss the chattering because it's been super quiet for awhile. I still do not understand WTF that was or why I was behaving that way. Does that sound like DID to you or was I just tripping balls 24/7?

going on just my own situation with having DID, no this is not how my DID was... it wasnt just a two time deal of journal writing. in me DID affected my whole life beginning with the first altered creation at before age 5.

example any time I felt depressed, suicidal, needing/ wanting to cry, any time there was a rain storm I would have my dissociative symptoms, then my dissociative alter Rainy would take control and handle those problems... just rain storms alone that means over millions and millions of times over the course of decades this alter was taking control and functioning just like any other normal human being (eating, drinking, changing clothing, taking baths... everything a normal human being does...even during school, home, birthday parties, happy events, sad events in my life ... you name it, if I was feeling depressed, suicidal, needing/ wanting to cry or a rain storm was happening this alter took over and did it for me.)

I never wrote or talked in the third person in regards to me and my alters. this would have alerted my parents, teachers and other adults that something was wrong. my abusers code of do not tell or else prevented this in me.

I did though talk in normal third person talking like all humans learn to do, like when talking to my parents my parents would say you kids go get your shoes on and my siblings and I would say we will. or we did. teachers and doctors would ask ... how are we today and i would say we are fine, but this was different then talking about my alters and I, I was just being like normal people.

my suggestion is if this continues to bother you contact your doctors, they will be able to tell you what this is in you.

[Amyjay]

Hi there mightyflytacos. From your description I would say DID isn't outside the realm of possibilities. It sounds like you definitely have some dissociation going on that is associated with amnesia and possible alternate identity states. Traumatic events in very early childhood are not part of the diagnostic criteria although typically there is some form trauma in that time period. It doesn't have to be severe abuse though, it could also be attachment trauma.
What does your therapist think?

[mightyflytacos]

Originally Posted by amandalouise

going on just my own situation with having DID, no this is not how my DID was... it wasnt just a two time deal of journal writing. in me DID affected my whole life beginning with the first altered creation at before age 5.

example any time I felt depressed, suicidal, needing/ wanting to cry, any time there was a rain storm I would have my dissociative symptoms, then my dissociative alter Rainy would take control and handle those problems... just rain storms alone that means over millions and millions of times over the course of decades this alter was taking control and functioning just like any other normal human being (eating, drinking, changing clothing, taking baths... everything a normal human being does...even during school, home, birthday parties, happy events, sad events in my life ... you name it, if I was feeling depressed, suicidal, needing/ wanting to cry or a rain storm was happening this alter took over and did it for me.)

I never wrote or talked in the third person in regards to me and my alters. this would have alerted my parents, teachers and other adults that something was wrong. my abusers code of do not tell or else prevented this in me.

I did though talk in normal third person talking like all humans learn to do, like when talking to my parents my parents would say you kids go get your shoes on and my siblings and I would say we will. or we did. teachers and doctors would ask ... how are we today and i would say we are fine, but this was different then talking about my alters and I, I was just being like normal people.

my suggestion is if this continues to bother you contact your doctors, they will be able to tell you what this is in you.

I'm sorry, but where did I say that I wrote or talked in third person? I said that one situation was abnormal (i.e. writing in my diary). I have no comment about my childhood since I cannot remember anything before age 9. And I did not talk about any alters? I was not suspicious of any odd behavior until recently since I was dissociated for 6-months. Re-read my post.

I'm very confused by your reply and suggest that you re-read my post. No shade.

Originally Posted by Amyjay

Hi there mightyflytacos. From your description I would say DID isn't outside the realm of possibilities. It sounds like you definitely have some dissociation going on that is associated with amnesia and possible alternate identity states. Traumatic events in very early childhood are not part of the diagnostic criteria although typically there is some form trauma in that time period. It doesn't have to be severe abuse though, it could also be attachment trauma.
What does your therapist think?

I have not seen my therapist in over a month, but I see my psychiatrist biweekly since I'm on a cocktail of drugs to keep me functioning like a normal human being (ha).

We mainly talked about my progress over the past year or so. He said that he was very very very confused about my condition or possible conditions. He said that... What was it... That I seemed quite emotionally intense, but... He used the word "disperse" to describe me. I have ADHD, but he said I had extreme problems with focusing and would keep wandering or IDK... Maybe zoning out? I was not aware of this behavior so this now concerns me... He said it was very difficult to get me to focus and he said it was not due to my inattentiveness (ADHD). He said that he thinks that it was maybe anxiety. So, he doesn't seem all that sure. My mother visited me and also noticed the zoning out thing more often than usual. He wanted me to maybe see a neurologist to make sure I wasn't having seizures.

We started talking before my whole summer blackout thingamabob. A few months after I started seeing him, I was severely dissociated, so I was banned from socializing with other people. I lacked say... Social awareness? Everything felt strange and dreamlike to me, which I did not like. So I wasn't eager to do much to begin with.

My therapist did not like to touch on the trauma since it causes problems (i.e. catatonia).

It was recommended by both my psychiatrist and therapist to just leave it alone and not bother to touch it with a 50ft pole. So while, the DID is uncertain, I do have a dissociative disorder (DPD or Depersonalization and Derealization Disorder). I seem to be unable to control it when I'm not on one of my medications. The dissociations are anxiety related, so they're probably going away since one of my meds is taking care of the anxiety.

[Amyjay]

Hmm, that's an interesting response from your T and pdoc. (recommending you to "not touch DID with a 10 foot pole". That wouldn't inspire trust in me. They acknowledge you have a dissociative disorder but when you mention symptoms that are specific to one particular dissociative disorder they say to not think about it? To me that would indicate their position towards the disorder more than anything else.
What do you think about what they have said to you?

[amandalouise]

mightyflyingtacos.... you asked me where you had wrote in the third person.... if you reread your first post you will find this paragraph....

But 2 of my entries are weird. The tone is kinda cold and disconnected. The entries read kinda like... Apathetic? But then it says things such as "I need to do this and that. My room is a mess. We should organize." And then later in the entry it says something like: "I am watching MSNBC because it is what she would normally do. I am watching it because that is what she likes to watch. I am attempting to enjoy myself like her. I am bored and change the channel"

writing in third person means you used the term we, she instead of using the wording I...

She likes to watch tv, what she would normally do, we should organize it,....

this is called talking in third person because no one else can see the alters inside, they see the body, not the alters, so when someone talks about their self in plurals its called talking in third person.

its nothing strange because even normal people sometimes refer to their self as we, they , she , he and so on, but in me I rarely did this because it would have pointed people to ask me who is she, who is we, why are you calling yourself she, we, they all those third person plurals.

let me give you an example of what i had meant...

if I had wrote in my therapy journal... she likes to watch tv... my therapist would have asked me who is she, who likes to watch tv, the result would be my alter has been exposed which would cause my alter that follows the do not tell rule to self injure the body, try and commit suicide and other harmful things to punish for telling.

thats what I meant in saying I did not write in third person. if I had wrote what you posted you wrote in your journal, I would have been harmed because of the abuser rule of do not tell. it was about me not you.

[mightyflytacos]

Originally Posted by Amyjay

Hmm, that's an interesting response from your T and pdoc. (recommending you to "not touch DID with a 10 foot pole". That wouldn't inspire trust in me. They acknowledge you have a dissociative disorder but when you mention symptoms that are specific to one particular dissociative disorder they say to not think about it? To me that would indicate their position towards the disorder more than anything else.
What do you think about what they have said to you?

Hello. What do you mean indicate their position towards it? I think that I'm just confused, really.

I think that they believe that it's best to not touch the trauma at the moment because they believe that it should be dealt with when it wants to be dealt with. From what I understood from my trauma-based therapists is that you should never force these things out if they don't want to be. They believe that my body is concealing it intentionally and will release it when I am ready to do so.

It was revealed this year that I have apparently implanted false memories before age 9 and maybe shortly after the event. Because the time lines do not make any type of logical sense. I never actually sat down and thought about it, but my childhood memories are either nonexistent or appear to be false. Most of my childhood memories are of me watching myself do things. I think this is why my memories are messed up because I believe that since I watched myself doing them, it must be true.

Otherwise, I have to ask my mom or brother about who I was and what I was like as a child, because I do not know or remember. I have no idea how I was personality wise. And I'm always wearing the same outfit and hairstyle that I wore on my 5th birthday party in the dumb fake memories that I concocted up. But I feel like I should just leave it alone. I might've made up **** because I'm uncomfortable about something. Who knows.

Do you mean depersonalization disorder? They did not tell me to not think about it, they were telling me that it was important to just take it slow and not stress myself out any further. And that they were not going to force me to talk about anything. They do think it's important for me to eventually address it, but it seems to have negative affects at this time.