Not Alters - Aspects?

[BlueOrange]

@stenni , I apologize for not answering your question sooner. I didn't pay the right attention to my alerts.

The first part of myself that I recognized as a part is called Blue. She just wants to be loved. She likes sex. She's also female, and therefore a scary thing to admit to when your body is male.

Orange was more frightening, Blue especially found him terrifying. He wants to be feared. He likes violence. Terrifying for me, when my temper was the thing I blamed for the loss of my marriage.

There are other parts as well, but I remember the process of Blue and Orange coming to terms with each other. Opening that communication took all day, and supportive help, and there was a lot of pain and crying. These days, I like to remind myself that I am both of them.

 

[ihateusernames]

@greenleaf Thank you! I was fortunate, I guess, that the last lady I was seeing did the same thing you're talking about. She "officially" diagnosed me with ppd. The rest of it, she just put the words out there. And then I was like what? I do that? Wow, I do. She's been at her job for a long, long time. Maybe she could recognize that I didn't want anything more. Anyway, as much as I don't want to I've got emails out to 2 other therapists I feel might work out and one just responded so we'll see where that goes. Thanks for the reassurance.

Like I was saying trying to say to stenni, although I'm not sure I made my point very effectively, I really want somebody to be able to tell me what's "normal" or healthy and what isn't. Because I honestly have no idea.

 

[BlueOrange]

I really want somebody to be able to tell me what's "normal" or healthy and what isn't. Because I honestly have no idea.

This is probably the most helpful thing I get from my therapist - a perspective on 'normal' that I think I can trust. (It took me a while to trust him, but he was always trustworthy.) So much of structural dissociation is about normal healthy mechanisms that get over-activated, over-excited, or whatever. It's especially tricky since 'normal' isn't the same as 'perfect' - it's normal to make mistakes, and it's normal to be unhappy about making mistakes. The structural dissociation book is also pretty good that way.

 

[7Cs]

I was unsure if this was reflective journal entry, or a thread. I'd like comment, so I've put it here,...

I'm curious as what your diagnosis is now that so much time has passed. I have self administered the MID and have had similar results taken 2x 1st result DID 2nd result Dissociative Diagnosis Deferred. I scored VERY high on defensiveness as well.

I also relate to these things that you said...

• "T asked me to explain more after I told her I'd only been partially present in an early session. I said "I was here, nodding and responding, but most of me was actually thinking "I'll just sit the corner and hum to myself until I'm needed" "

• I have trouble explaining how easy it is for me to believe two completely opposite things at one time. Simple questions can often have five alternative answers, all equally valid.

• My husband said my PTSD Diagnosis was relief to him, as he now understood my emotional fluctuation as a symptom. Before that, he said "I never knew who I was coming home to"

• I often wake full of inexplicable rage *(depression for me)*

• I am aware of a major aspect myself as feeling like a three year old - confused by how the world works, struggling to function in a world of adults, and quite inclined to throw tantrums. What I think of as the real me is calm, measured, and is certainly perceived by others as capable and very rarely in need of support. Also an aspect that thinks the only thing to do with any meds is take seven times the dose to achieve oblivion. Except, oddly, with aspirin, which can only be taken according to the instructions."

 

[Sandstone]

, I'm curious as what your diagnosis is now that so much time has passed

So am I.

The NHS has crawled along at rather less than glacial speed. I had an assessment just over a week ago. I wish I had remembered that this thread existed. It would have been handy to be able to summarise my experience as I did here,

I wish I had asked the result, but I think he probably agreed with my self assessment ( on that day) that I sat at he high end of the dissociative spectrum, but below DID. If I get the written report I'll post the outcome. Perhaps my determined omission indicates I'm still phobic of the result. It has certainly been a difficult week, when I've found it much harder than usual to resist drugging myself to oblivion.