[rise13eyond]

It helps me to process things by typing or writing things out, and since I had this open anyway I'm gonna type it all here. First of all I don't care what anyone thinks of me...Well maybe I do, but I'm gonna try not to let it get to me. Along with that I don't care if anyone replies, but my goal isn't to get a response from anyone. Lastly this will probably be kinda long and all over the place because that's how I think.
So....
Lately, with all the new alters and activity I've spent a lot of time thinking and reflecting. We've mad a lot of progress despite having a long way to go still. I just remembered, or realized something. I'm going to ask and answer 3 questions for myself. First, what happened when I was little that traumatized me? Second, why did no alters appear until recently and why now? And third, why do I have such a problem with memories?
Like I said it was more recent that any alters were born and I only recall when 3 of them appeared, so I don't really know exactly when the first came out. But I am guessing it all started because of and in the heat of a sexually abusive relationship that lasted about the first half of last year. Now I know full well it's believed DID is caused by childhood trauma. Well then why didn't it start then for me? Up until maybe a few months ago I tried and told myself there was no way I could have DID, those kinds of things happened, just not to me (I've done this with all of my mental illnesses but that's a topic for another time). I was looking for answers by asking the wrong questions. You know I couldn't possibly have DID so it would be pointless in asking someone else if they thought I might have it. But I was posting in a forum, avoiding insinuating that I had DID or anything similar, yet someone brought it to my attention. At that point I thought to myself, maybe I don't understand DID as much as I thought I did. So I talked to them about it for a while did some reading and talked to my therapist. We all (all alters, me, and everyone I talked to) came to the same conclusion. It had to be DID. One of the things I found was I have little memories from before the age of 12 (I'll talk more about this in a bit). But there are some things I know from what other people have said, and what little I do remember. I've been in therapy for many years I feel that if something horrible had happened it would have come up already. Let me tell you what I know of my childhood.
My parent's divorced when I was a baby. I know from pictures and stories that I would visit my dad a lot, and presumably would stay over night with him as soon as I was able to stay away from my mom for that long. It's pretty hard, actually harder on young children than it is older children, for their parents to be separated, because of the stage of brain development they're at. I remember feelings more than I do events. I explained some of these feelings and multiple therapists immediately stated that had to be Separation Anxiety Disorder, which was something I had to look up then but seems fitting. (I've literally dealt with mental illness my entire life how about that?) This went on well into my teens. Everyone would just say I would get homesick while away and that was it. When I spent the night away from home I would cry myself. I took a plushie with me (OK I still do that). At my dads everyone would steal my plushies and teas me with them. In the car my dad would yank them out of my hands and hold them out the window pretending he was going to drop them. Even as I got older I didn't understand that he was teasing, and even when I'd start to cry he's just laugh. And they wondered why I didn't like to visit.
OK now for the dread 12 years old. It was a pretty big event in my life so it makes sense that I remember it. The summer after I turned 12 my grandpa moved out of state to attempt to begin a business and ask my mom and stepdad to come help. So without a lot of warning we packed up and moved too. Several states away and to a place we'd never been and didn't know anyone. However aft we'd only been there a couple months we came back home for a visit and were then told the business wasn't going well so we didn't need to be in a hurry to get back. We ended up never going back, but since we had rented out our house we stayed in my grandparent's vacant house. I saw my favourite aunt move far away as well as a very close friend move away with the same couple months. Well you know a lot happens at that age. Change of schools, changes in body and mental development. Depression became a big thing at 13 and has pretty much been with me since then. Not going to go into the whole paranoid schizophrenia thing, I don't feel like any of that is relevant here.
Should have mentioned this earlier but as far as I know I've experienced dissociation (apart from having alters) for as long as I can remember. That tendency has always been inside of me, it just took a while for alters to properly form.
I feel like I've said everything I can think of now, although there probably could be more to say, I'm just going to stop here. And at least it's out of my system for the time being.

This got me thinking. Not always a good thing!!! Relevant background....army brat who transferred apprx. every 1 to 3 years often returning to main posting for a short time.Example, 4 high schools in 4 years. Never knew I had alters...Never had long term friends that would notice either.
Ever adapting was a military kid SOP. Had a lot of *skill sets* cuz rarely was anything carried over to new station. Then I married a civilian and *settled down". Wow were civilians weird! Husband had same friends mostly from K thru 12. Some went on to college. Got married about the same time etc. Knew him better than his parents! But I got along with the various cliques. Occasional questions seemed odd. But they soon stopped asking where I learned x or how I got an interest in Y. Answer always..yea, army brat! I had a difficult labor with first child. Pains got up to 5 minutes apart then would stop. Awoke once Doc in room said "you have an unusual way of dealing with pain". Wasn't sure how was suppose to deal with it. Well, I now know that was an alter. I can look back thru my life & point out alters doing things. I call them *skill sets*. I can't surf. But we have surfing trophies from our time in Hawaii! We've been working intensely on co-consciousness for the last year. I consider being MPD a benefit. My therapist had emergency surgery (pacemaker) & related how his Doc told him things that he didn't remember. His wife took notes & said he acted like he understood. We were astounded. Why didn't you have someone else come who wasn't effected by the drugs & take notes? we asked. Duh! That's literally what we had done. Now I can ask other alters & more & more are responding. We had no idea of the trauma that birthed us. Of course we didn't remember a lot of our childhood...it was scattered all over the world! My T knew before we did. He made friends with one of the youngest ones & she told..very matter of factly. Now we are learning to call on the others to help. We have one whose OCD about neatness & housekeeping. As good as having maid service! It's not all easy. But those single personality people don't have it easy either. We wouldn't switch places tho. Thanks for your post.

[kecanoe]

I was largely unaware of alters until I was in my 40's. I had a strongly constructed system that fooled even the Ts that I had seen over the years for addiction related stuff. One T that I saw (until he retired) said that in his experience with people with DID it was not uncommon for us to make it that long and be pretty high functioning before the system making itself known. So for me, the alters formed at an early age, but I was mostly unaware of them, or thought of them as being my "inner child" that people without DID talk about.

[rise13eyond]

Originally Posted by kecanoe

I was largely unaware of alters until I was in my 40's. I had a strongly constructed system that fooled even the Ts that I had seen over the years for addiction related stuff. One T that I saw (until he retired) said that in his experience with people with DID it was not uncommon for us to make it that long and be pretty high functioning before the system making itself known. So for me, the alters formed at an early age, but I was mostly unaware of them, or thought of them as being my "inner child" that people without DID talk about.

tbh like no one knows how long we've all been around, i know when i was born, and kitty and shannon, but not the rest. well Beyond is based off a character so there's no way he could be around from before any of us knew the character existed.