I just excitedly stumbled onto this site and I didn't resist or felt that this is not where I belong. I'm frightened, though, of something that I'm not really sure exactly what. Nothing is consistent or makes any kind of logical sense of what my body is doing or feeling when my mind is not even in this equation. My body feels things so intensly and it is so overwhelming and sweeps me up so fast in , maybe emotions, (I don't know what it is) this....I don't have words for it because they are different so many of the time and there is no way for me to intellectually to barge in and tell my body and/or nervous system that I'm an adult now so you are safe nor can I stop looking and acting "normal" ( which includes me being so social, confident, happy, intelligent, etc.) when I'm around others especially therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, friends, family and okay, pretty much everybody. There has actually been a few times lately where my mom and one sister did experience a different state or part or whatever it is but I even question if that even happened or not because my mom or sister does not seem that anything was wrong or different with me. I'm extremely confused as to what is real, if things really are happening in the way I perceive as happening, if what I think I'm experiencing is un ordinary to what "normal" humans experience on a daily basis, if the really (or so I think) bad memory lapses or "forgetfulness " that I experience is ordinary, or hearing all the different voices inside me arguing, demanding, comforting, child and children, the angry male voices that call me the most aweful names and see vivid images of me being chopped into pieces like in a horror film yet it feels so good and calming and not scary at all. To have never experienced a visual flashback of any trauma nor do I ever think of them with any sort of emotions. It's so easy to tell my "story" (I don't know what to put in quotes or not. Think it's a defense mechanism just in case?) without crying, anger, hate, shame (by the way, I don't think I feel shame so that's also confusing in that in every thing I read about PTSD and dissociation is this overwhelming feeling of shame or embarrassed and I have never wished my life had been different nor blamed anyone except the classic blaming myself) but maybe I have? (I'm typing this on my phone so if I don't make sense or push something that wasn't supposed to just want to apologize beforehand:)) Thank goodness I had kept journals since I was 10 years old because my reality is there in black and white so if I have to defend myself over why I had anorexia when around 12 years old, how chaotic and unsafe my home was, how my dad behavior was never consistent especially where religion is concerned (he would sell all our furniture and take our new vehicles back and be fanatical about being prepared for the end of days) and then a couple months later he is buying new furniture and new vehicles, bringing home rated R movies, never say prayer, stop going to church, etc. My whole childhood until 17 years old I was constantly frightened that my family wouldn't be with me when I died and all the horrible things that were supposed to happen at the coming of Christ. I suffered from really bad depression and self hate and tried so hard to be perfect. I did pretty darn good too:) But then my whole world dissolved in about an hour when I was 17. I was raped and never told a soul. I can't even say that I was numb but maybe it I was. It was a whole separate person that existed and a whole lot more. Has anyone heard of Religious Trauma? I can relate. Winding down. I have been through 3 therapists within the last year that has tried to force me to believe I do not dissociate. A new psychiatrist who in one meeting told me I don't look like I dissociate and totally judged me not by what my previous psychiatrist has been seeing me for the last two years one hour every month for, which is DIDNOS, PTSD, eating disorder, bipolar, OCD, suicide attempts, fatigue, insomnia and now my last therapist was forcing me to fit me into the borderline personality disorder to convince me that I don't dissociate therefore I can change my behavior and not blame it on dissociation. I'm tired of not being validated, seen and heard. To question myself so many times and to become more and more secluded and always feel I have to defend myself so I spend hours on internet and books about human development and brains and everything having to do with mental health (or lack of), and how therapists should hopefully understand their patients, and everything that has to do with this life to fit in with these humans. I saw a psychiatrist because I need to get meds refilled and I had an evaluation and I was in a mischievous mood thank goodness. This guy , I swear, has only been taught that everything is bipolar or at least he's only comfortable with that diagnosis. He asks me the basic questions and I ask him on what day or month or year and what minute or second does he want that answer to reflect. He dismissed me and said I just have bipolar and I told him I sincerely was grateful for making all this mess clear to me. Then he asks about PTSD. He asks me how long I have had to endure the flashbacks and nightmares and I said I've never had them. He was surprised and said I definitely don't have PTSD. I asked him why when someone who is raped not be affected in one way or another and I haven't been affected through three rapes along all the other things that happen in between. He said it must have just rolled off of me. I said "Awesome!" And he filled my meds. This is where I am and I realize that me talking or texting keeps me dissociate from feeling also. Sorry I wrote so much!