Sad

I hate to admit this to myself but I’m still dissociating really bad. I have gone through two unsuccessful dissociation therapists and one really damaged me by abandoning me when I had an intense attachment. The one after that just plain didn’t help, I don’t know.

There’s no other therapists in my area that do dissociative disorders and none that really look trustworthy anyway and my trust has been worn extremely thin in the first place.

When I was abandoned by my first therapist it was only a number of weeks after some severe inner changes which to this day I still have not really made sense of. There is another part of me that blocks me from knowing anything about myself and genuine communication isnt feeling possible without outside help. Anyway after that everything just shut down. I have been feeling like I’m locked out of my own body and emotions. It is very stressful. I feel like I’m running on empty a lot of the time.

I hate to admit it but I really don’t know what to do and I really don’t feel like I have it together. Now I’m going through some significant life changes pretending that this dissociation is not a thing and I’m worried that I’m just going to make all the wrong choices anyway.

I just feel like I’m getting too old for this. My 20s will only last so much longer. I can’t afford to lose like another 10 years to dissociation. I need this time to count for something more. Yet I’m afraid I will end up trying to force it and get sent back to square one.

Argh, it sucks. It feels like I can never win, it’s like a game where the difficulty keeps suddenly increasing every time I think I’m getting used to it.

Sometimes I just break down and start crying out of nowhere. I feel so alone and it’s like there’s a wall between me and other people and also a wall between me and my own self I can’t express myself to people, it hurts

I am sorry you are having a hard time.

you stated genuine communication is not possible with out a treatment provider....

question.... what do you mean or what do you expect a treatment provider to do that you can not do.....

examples of communicating with alters in my location......

thinking inside... this is where each in the system thinks something and others think back.... I would think..... I wonder what Rainy is afraid of.... then rainy would think I am afraid of thunder.

hearing voices is just a natural part of being DID. this is something a treatment provider in the USA does not help create, or help people with DID to do. its just a matter of how the brain works, every human being automatically thinks either out loud or to their self or in DID cases to each other.

maybe you can think to your alters and they can think back to you

drawing..... even way back before I was 5 years old and with my very first box of crayons, markers and access to pencils and pens pictures got drawn, things like little sentences, made up books, journals, cards, letters got done. this is a way to communicate with alters. therapists dont create or teach this, it just happens.

maybe you can sit down with a pen and paper or laptop or with crayons, markers or pencils and write, draw and maybe those alters who know how to write, draw or type can do it back to you.

my point is only you and your alters knows what ways each of you talk, write, draw, think. thats what is called genuine communication with alters here where I am.

@amandalouise

Well it’s not so much I guess that communication isn’t possible it’s just that my parts don’t want or are not willing to communicate with me. And don’t even seem to be willing to explain why they don’t want to. I think there is a lot of fear inside. Somehow I alienated myself. Things like their thoughts or feelings I seem to have no access to. They’ve said I talk too much. I think they don’t want to tell me because then they think I’d end up telling someone else. Well fair enough, but it doesn’t leave me many options

They do want to talk to my former therapist though... who will not talk to me... sigh...

Just wondering if you have personally contacted all the therapists in your area to ask about dissociation. Often they don't advertise it. The T I see now has quite a lot of experience with DID but doesn't advertise that on her website. I had considered her when initially searching for a therapist but discounted her because she didn't even talk about working with trauma clients. But my ex-T referred me to her when ex T left her practise as she is experienced and trained in treating DID clients, she just doesn't advertise it.
Just a long way of saying if you haven't already called and personally asked each T about their experience with dissociative disorders it might be worth a shot.

I'd rather have a therapist who genuinely cared about me and listened but knew nothing about dissociation, than have someone who was the best in their field but was arrogant and didn't listen.

I just feel like I’m getting too old for this. My 20s will only last so much longer. I can’t afford to lose like another 10 years to dissociation. I need this time to count for something more. Yet I’m afraid I will end up trying to force it and get sent back to square one.

Argh, it sucks. It feels like I can never win, it’s like a game where the difficulty keeps suddenly increasing every time I think I’m getting used to it.

That’s a lot of undue pressure that you are pushing on yourself on things beyond your control.

I can hear the angst and stress in your writing because of this. Yes, it sucks. Yes, people sucks. At 50...acceptance has finally crept in doing this thing one day at a time.

I’m sorry that you are feeling this way....

There was a time when I wanted to be fixed so bad that I was stressed over how slow it was getting a T, then self sabotage, and anxiety believing the grass is greener on the other side and I’m fighting resistance that keeps me from getting there.

I’ve learned that I’m not in control of my life and all I can do is handle the moment in front of me...and hopefully it leads to a better moment closer to a goal...and if not...then it’s not meant to be. Thinking about any part of the future and wants literally makes me stomach sick.

Maybe you can say that I’m consigned to the fact of.... life is stressful enough and getting ulcers over it doesn’t help any. I’ve eventually came to the thinking that this is how my life was meant to be and the possibility is great that this is how it is to be to the end- but I haven’t given up on finding help...just not to stressed about it anymore because it led me to the bad place.

I really don’t know what to say but hang in there and hope that you find the help you need. Sorry.

@AmyJay

Interesting I had never considered doing that. I'll try to keep that in mind if I see a T that otherwise looks like a good fit. Thanks

@AlwaysChanging2

Your username resonates with me because that's something my therapist used to tell me, that she was confused because I'll say I'm one thing or I think one thing and then it changes. Kind of weird in retrospect that a DID therapist would be bothered by that but, whatever.

I definitely am guilty of pressuring myself. That's probably why my parts won't talk to me. I put too many expectations on every little thought and feeling. I so desperately want to be healthy and live a fuller life, but I end up putting expectations on myself because of that. I try to read into every thought and feeling looking for something that will move me forward.

Doing that so much I killed my ability to be free and spontaneous, in fact I'm afraid of expressing myself at all because I'm afraid that somehow my self-expression will be "wrong." I'm afraid of attaching myself to one thing or another and then having people think that that's me.

Tbh I don't actually think of people like this, it's just that I've been pressured by others to think of myself this way. Like if I said I played a video game then people would make all these assumptions, oh so you're a video gamer huh, then every time I see them it's like what game are you playing lately? Man, I feel like if I show any aspect of myself then people will take that and turn it into this big thing.

I feel like other people have always been trying to define me, put me in a box, and somehow I became complicit in that, I started trying to define myself too and honestly I just couldn't. I'm not that simple. I'm a lot of things. The possible manifestations of my personality are limitless. I hate when people see one single manifestation of that and treat that like that's my Real Identity(tm) and now I'm "that gamer guy" or whatever just because they heard I played a video game once.

Seriously why do people do that? They expect your whole personality to fit on a checklist that you can hand out like a business card or something. People just often get upset because they don't understand me, but it feels like it's rude of them to assume that I should be easy for them to understand. OR otherwise they assume they understand me when they don't and that is so irritating.

I started to feel like that's the way the world works, I have to be John Doe with hobbies A, B and C and passion X and that should all fit into one neat mission statement that I can wear around like a freaking nametag, and also it should be similar to everyone else so that way people don't have to spend any energy on thinking about who or what I am.

I get really self-conscious about expressing myself because it feels like it always gets blown out of proportion. THAT's why I pressure myself to know who I really am so that when poeple react to me like "ohhh so you're the guy who plays video games, I see," then somehow maybe I could give them the RIGHT idea about me rather than the wrong one, but it's impossible, what those people want from me is utterly impossible because I simply am not that one-dimensional.

See this is why I got so dissociative in the first place because to one person I was "that guy who plays video games" to another person I'm "the tea drinker" and it's treated like that has to be my whole identity when really all of these things are only incidentally associated with me when I may have only even touched that interest one single time.

Man, I just want to feel like I'm allowed to try on different hats without it being taken so seriously. I wish I didn't feel like every little thing I do and every way that I experiment is going to be tattooed on my forehead and carried around with me for the rest of my life. I really wish that people would stop assuming that I have to be easy for them to understand or would stop assuming that they understand me.

BUt... I know that some people are going to keep being like that, I can't change anyone else, I can only change myself. It is hard to just be like "whatever, I'm just going to be me" when I get panic attacks just trying to do any kind of self-expression. I got a panic attack checking out at Michael's the other day because I was there for a hobby and I felt like the contents of my shopping cart are going to be assumed to say a lot about me and the cashiers will think all these judgmental things about me. I get panic attacks over simple little things like this, I feel trapped in people's perception of me when really I want to feel free to be whoever or whatever I want to be on any given day. YOu know? I can't control people's assumptions about me and I wish it didn't affect me so much but it does it's really hard for me to just brush it off. I wish I had the self-esteem to be like, "hah, you think that's me, you have no idea!" And just play around with that and have no shame. But sadly I definitely have NOT developed that kind of confidence.

All I know for sure is I can't win by playing their game and saying "okay, THIS is me." People will either try to understand me or they will just make all their assumptions. People think whatever they want to think. It was a mistake and a huge waste of time to ever take that personally :/ I'd like to stop.

Sorry if I got really off topic... but thank you for getting me thinking about this because this is actually what's really been bothering me. YES it is this pressure, this pressure I am not very good at dealing with right now. I wanna be free and feel free and not feel like who people think I am is going to change the way they treat me so much.

But theoretically I have come to hope and believe that as long as I don't take it personally or make a big deal of it, nobody else will. I HOPE that is true. I need to experience it more to really believe it.

Yes...you sound a lot like me. Will I be judged by the Others actions?...you know I will...looked at, laughed at, judged, called names (been there).. I’m always on guard trying to stay me out of fear of discovery or judged something that I’m not. I do it, too.

I’ve spent a lifetime in fear to late and I’m sick of it...but it will continue...and getting help isn’t going to change it because I will always be me with my Others doing their own thing. So... this is how it is...they don’t like it..kiss my a..! Lol

People pleasing...****

Thinking about a tattoo of DID across the forehead, lol. Not really...would be nice though where you are instantly understood and accepted.

Will this mode of being ever go away? I doubt it...just got to swallow hard and keep going. Making deals like scheduling with my other parts like who gets home time, work time, playtime, or specific jobs help.

Most everyone don’t know of my condition because we are very secretive... but when we go shopping...yes self-conscious creeps in. It’s no fun fighting your own mind.

People think I’m multitalented and a genius...and at awe of my talents. Little they no that my experiences are stored in parts and that part contains all the techniques of that talent. I tell them that my brain doesn’t store memories like theirs do and that I don’t think like they do...they will never get it....which makes me feel unique in a good way...but if they knew what some of my other parts are (female parts)...let’s say I’d move away.

Anyways...this is life for us likening it or not...there are always room for improvement and adventure. It’s just a choice.

For me I never really got a good understanding of "my system" or my parts... thing is I was always too avoidant of expressing myself to even have enough information to be able to figure those things out. My therapist would ask me to imagine something and would ask me what I see and I'd be like unable to even know or formulate an answer because I was so focused on "what am I supposed to/allowed to/expected to see..."

I never even felt safe enough to just simply say or even recognize that like "I see a panda" or whatever. I never even got to the point of "I can say what I want to say without being abandoned." Actually I was abandoned too, for being honest.

So a lot of it I'm not very aware about. I can't really name parts or know where feelings come from or often why. Best I can do is just go with my intuition. Any real consistency in that always eluded me so far. There's really just one part who I think is gatekeeping the whole entire thing, my whole entire inner world, and talking to that part is like talking to a sphinx, it never gets anywhere. Whatever my system is like it seems to be on lockdown.

So I can relate at least to always changing and to being undefined but I really don't even have much insight when things do change as to how they changed or why they changed. I just end up being confused and confusing mostly.

So it's comforting to think I could be allowed to just be "undefined" right now but I think people don't like that, they want to know, who are you? Only genuine answer I have to offer is, I don't know, I'll figure it out someday. BUt that would at least be a whole lot better than saying, I don't know, who do you want me to be? Yeah **** people pleasing indeed. I'm tired of that.

Wow, it sounds like it was a crucial protection mechanism for your system to be elusive, adaptable and undefined so you could change at a moment's notice to avoid being rejected. Almost like you needed to be so focused on what the other person needed from you or needed you to be to avoid rejection/abuse/abandonment etc. Is that kind of right? If so, no wonder it is so terrifying for you to hold on to and own your own sense of self and experience.

When you find a therapist it might be helpful to tak about that. It could be like a primary defence that you need to unravel before you can even feel safe enough to get to the inside parts, kwim?

Don't be too hard on yourself about it. That was what you needed to do. in the environment you grew up in it was the perfect adaptation to get as many of your needs met as you possibly could. It helped you and it served you well! And now that you are no longer in that situation it might be okay to unravel that defence so you can get to help all the parts that have been hidden safely underneath.
Maybe you could say "It doesn't feel safe enough to own who I am.... yet."

(I could be completely off track here, please ignore if so!)

Yeah...I was always like what is their ulterior motive...always suspicious of....second guessing because the way we were raised was one of trickery and pain.

We were always there to care for other people while avoiding looking in at our own needs and wants.....

We just know we are multiple and are many for names are unimportant to us...we each have a job or function and most of us go by that label. Besides...most of us is triggered out before any real recognition can be asserted.

It takes all of us to make a single person to live through a day. Just knowing that this is why....the stress of not knowing fades away. I wish you peace of mind and soul.

YES, EXACTLY!! It's like this, you are on point.

I'm just afraid of therapy because therapists don't even recognize how impossible it is for me to truly open up. And if I want to say something about it there will be this ... magical force that prevents me from saying it.

I was always inappropriately afraid of just ordinary conversations with people. I'd always freeze up and go on autopilot responding a certain way that I guess part of me thinks that is what they want to hear. It's like I feel like I'm looking for "the right answer" rather than expressing myself. People then believe that is who I really am when it's not. And I can feel that that's who they think I am then it's like I can't stop being that way.

It takes me a LONG time to get comfortable with someone. No matter how familiar they are I always get this visceral fear that if I say the wrong thing once then they will turn on me.

So unless I am completely alone and not even thinking about anyone else, it is hard to even KNOW how I feel or what I think or what I want or what I need. It is really hard.

I have always dreamed that someday I would be able to have my own life and be my own person. I am so afraid that time is going to steal that from me.

"It doesn't feel safe enough to own who I am.... yet." <thank you I will try to remember that. I am trying to remember and be more aware of how hard it is for me to simply feel "safe."

Yes I totally relate to that. People say all these things where I tend to get this feeling like "you don't really mean that... you just want me to think you mean it." I don't like thinking like that but I have been let down when I tried to trust people and found out they did not really have my best interest in mind. In my FOO I was also manipulated and controlled a LOT. It has become really hard to trust.

Can I ask, was there a time for you before you had an awareness of the different parts? Did you just get a better sense over time of who is what?

I started figuring things out when I was 15...and started talking in with a “Hello?”- then Susie said hello right back....yikes! Lol

I remember once at 4 (?) father doing something and a girls voice said “eww she liked that”...I thought it was strange but let it go. In a way I deeply suspected it...and got interested in psychology and MPD back then...so I did a few years of research as a teenager...until the Susie encounter.

At first I would do automatic hand writing because we were so nerdy at the time (still is) instead of sports because life made no sense. I began to notice that I was writing in different styles and the word would pop into my head AFTER I wrote it. After this I tried verbalization and got mind blowing results.

At first we started choosing names, but after 20-30 or so...we are so many....keeping up is a chore so we quit and decided to just name ourselves after the job we do like Angry One, Mechanic, Carpenter, Hillbilly, Pissed,....

It was just a matter of finally looking in to explore what we have spent the last 40 years avoiding.

Interesting...

I never thought anything about being dissociative until in therapy my therapist started to suspect that and gave me one of those dissociation questionnaires.

After that we went into working with parts and I still didn't really know if any of it was real. I was like naming parts of myself that I had only thought must exist just from an analytical standpoint. Just focusing on times I felt different and stuff like that, but never really truly thinking I have DID or something or thinking that my parts were truly "separate" from me somehow.

It's interesting you mention automatic writing because that's similar to the way I had my first experience of feeling like there was really "another person" or a truly separate consciousness in my own brain and body. I was laying there one night writing in my journal a day after I had had some stressful experiences. Then as I was starting to get sleepy at one point I realized I felt like my hand was moving on its own. Then I started to really feel that way. I tried not to freak out because I'm a skeptical person but this was VERY REAL.

That part started drawing, not really anything in particular, just shapes and lines and stuff. But that prompted me to start asking questions since I was aware of dissociation. Then that part started writing back words to me and drawing smily faces and people.

Then suddenly I got flooded with HORRIBLE emotions for the next couple of weeks. They were intensely awful. Worst emotions I have ever felt. I felt so unsafe and utterly paranoid and intense waves of fear. I thought I was losing my mind or developing schizophrenia or something. I was afraid to even sleep thinking my body's gonna get taken over. This part was saying really mean aggressive things to me and seemed to truly hate me. I started to feel like I'm always being "watched" and it freaked me out. I thought this part was judging every little thing I'm doing and saying and even everything I'm THINKING.

My therapist tried to help me sort this out but it was too much stuff all at once. Well after a few weeks of that I calmed down a bit and realized the world hasn't ended. Tbh that whole time I kind of just was longing for the point where this other part of me would just disappear and I would be "fixed." IT was stressful to have to think about who this part is and what it wants from me or what it needs, I had never thought about things like that. I felt like I was losing "freedom" because I had to constantly pay attention to this other part of me. So I tried not to think that I really wished it would just go away.

Well only a few weeks after that my therapist abandoned me because I talked about my feelings.

Ever since then the inside was mostly quiet. I didn't think about it as much because I was more focused on coping with the loss of that therapist which was very hard for me to cope with. So I have not felt normal since then either. There's still a LOT of dissociation happening. I haven't even been very emotional since then. That's all I really know.

I'm of two minds about what I should do at this point. I know there's "more to me" and there is still a lot of dissociation. But part of me thinks the way therapy approaches dissociation is wrong and it should be handled in a more "organic" way focusing on living a fuller life. Then on the other hand sometimes I wonder if maybe that approach won't actually get me anywhere and maybe I'll keep feeling stuck unless I treat this as dissociation and go back to therapy etc. to do that inner type of work.

However since my trust in therapy was so shattered I have lost the motivation to go back especially since I can hardly afford it and there's not a whole lot of decent options in my area. It just feels like too much work only to end up disappointed again. I invested over 2 years and thousands of dollars into that one therapist only to realize that she was not a reliable professional. Then I saw another dissociation therapist for a year and that just didn't get anywhere. I'm frustrated and all I want is to have a fuller life but so many challenges stemming from the PTSD type symptoms are always weighing me down. The money that goes into therapy is not insignificant as that money could be used for other ways of developing myself and improving my life instead....

I feel like, does dissociation therapy actually make people better? Is there any solid evidence that it truly works? Ugh, I've become so skeptical of therapy and I feel so jaded about going back into that. I don't want to end up feeling emotionally dependent on some therapist again.

I’m not in therapy due to finances... there is two outcomes for therapy...one is integration of parts and the other is co-operation between parts.

Most of us hate the idea of integration, so we kinda automatically do co-op. We vote, debate, compromise, plan, schedule,...together much like a business meeting, but also run this life like captain and crew.

Sometimes the angry, upset, mean, judgemental parts need love- more on the inside then out...especially since it is it’s own part of you. Once I started loving, accepting, and understanding their reason for their being, they tend to settle down- they are still there, but more relaxed.

Find you a therapist specializing in trauma so you don’t end up someone else’s guinea pig.

Thanks for sharing your experience, it's really helpful. I need to pay more attention to what's happening inside. It all feels so blurry. Stuff is going on inside I just don't detect it a lot of the time. I tend to be so distracted. And usually my thoughts just go all over the place a million miles a minute. :/

Do you have another diagnosis? I always thought the extra thinking was rapid thoughts from bipolar, I mean it was, but also the rapid thoughts of the Others. Once we got on stabilizers, things slowed down a bit.

Maybe you can use anxiety meds?

Do you have a MD to talk to? I get my psych meds through my GP.

Try journaling. Get a notebook and start writing what comes to mind and even suggests to the others that they can write to see what happens.

Maybe get your thoughts organized and written down. You can also take this to your therapist when you get one.

Yeah... it's definitely been suggested to me I might be bi-polar. I have had a lot of what seemed like manic episodes in the past. I never asked about it because I'm kinda afraid of meds but more and more I've been thinking it's worth a shot.

But I was diagnosed BPD before I was diagnosed DDNOS (guess that's OSDD now? Idk)

Journaling is good for me personally it's just that my parts don't usually want to contribute. I tried again yesterday and all I got was an intense abstract drawing of all black lines everywhere. Just kept drawing like that for hours but I can't understand what they are trying to communicate by doing that. Feels like anger to me but, idk. I don't know why they're angry at me instead of the actual abuse that made me this way in the first place.

Maybe just cause I'm bad at asking for help. BUt then if they're so angry at me for that, why don't they ask? But that never happens. They only take over my body physically in terms of movement, they never take "control."

Thinking in terms of being multiple is weird because I don't know what I should be able to just "force myself" to do or what is maybe supposed to be the job of a different part of me.... I'm pretty bad at manufacturing willpower for things I feel reluctant to do. Actually VERY bad at it.

Me too...like the Others want to write in a book...right? :/

I’ve gone through the scribble...but it was more of a block and very frustrating...as if they were mad.

But I think part of it is because of the negativity and denial of the obvious truthful which they took offense.

So...who is the real? Idk.