DID Fragmented personality disorder?

[Chava]

So I'm going to tentatively say we are talking about a few different things here

yes, I think so

Interesting... your freezing doesn't cross the line into catatonia does it?

kind of but I can move if I have too, and don't have a label for this

what I am experiencing now came on suddenly as part of a breakdown, has been consistent since then, and is distinct from any of the above states

I am feeling most acutely is that my personality no longer exists. I have no idea what I am interested in or want to do

So, I don't know what this is. But if I fit your words to my experience, it seems less like a kind of dissociation and more along the lines of depressive and/or identity stuff. ???? Maybe, maybe not. I do know that for me, my roles (whatever they are) are extremely important. When a role ("musician") feels f*cked with because of an injury or whatever, I feel really ungrounded and lost. I read in Laurence Heller's book on developmental trauma that having a role or structure for one's personality/identity, is a pretty strong need connected to early trauma. I anchor myself to my role or this identity. It works pretty well, but then if something goes wrong I can't find any "self" beneath my role. Not sure if that makes any sense. For me it's along the lines of trauma stuff, but more related to personality/identity and not a dissociative thing.

 

[sun seeker]

But if I fit your words to my experience, it seems less like a kind of dissociation and more along the lines of depressive and/or identity stuff. ????

You're right, it's not dissociative. I am definitely depressed, but that's not all of it - I've been depressed for much of my life but this is more like something in me snapped and I just knew, from one moment to the next, that I had been holding on by my fingernails all my life and I absolutely could not keep holding on any longer. So yes, identity stuff. I realized I don't have an identity and have been latching on to other people's identities, which has disastrous results but allowed me to survive until now. That was all gone in no time flat.

 

[Justmehere]

Ego State Theory is the basic idea that everyone has personality fragments that are called ego states. Every fragment is an ego state. In adults who are "healthy," the states all are fairly well connected and all feel like a very consistent self even when they are experiencing different states. Everyone has these states. Even those without trauma.

I had a therapist explain it to me like this: if hypothetical Joe is teaching a class, he is being the part of his personality that is Joe the teacher. If he suddenly gets interrupted teaching because the secretary comes with a call about his mother urgently calling him at work, he becomes Joe the worried son. The teacher Joe is still in control so that he can continue to teach, as he is also reassuring himself, really Joe the scared son, that things will be ok, he can call her back soon, until he can return that urgent call from his mother. If his mother then explains that she is actually just calling to ask about how long to preheat the oven for a pie she was making, then Joe feels another state, the annoyed and mad Joe. Joe the teacher stays in control and helps moderate the annoyed and mad Joe's response. Joe experiences all these "states" of himself, which are personality fragments in ego state theory, as all being him.

All these states develop initially in childhood, and more and more states get added over time. When trauma get thrown into childhood, lots of defenses, walls, develop between between the different states (aka personality fragments.)

I used to struggle with the sense of not having any sense of self. I felt like a chameleon. This therapist reassured me that my self was there, it was just still too scary and overwhelming to connect with it. When trauma happens, especially developmental trauma, it can become dangerous to have a self at all. This therapist said that even if no amnesia is involved, it is still considered a dissociative phenomenon in ego state theory to have a lack of a sense of self. I think that smart people can reasonably have different viewpoints on if it is dissociation or not. It does make a lot of sense to me that dissociation or not, it is a defense mechanism to not feel any connection or sense of self. It is a way to cope with the pain of trauma, of the threat to self that can come with trauma.

Personality fragments can become disconnected, built up with different kinds of walls other than amnesic dissociation. There are many defense mechaisms other than dissociation.
My therapist said anger can be a wall to never connect with a depressed ego state.

I have experienced feeling like I do have a young self and a teenage self... and feeling like I have no real adult self at all. This trauma therapist actually agreed with me at the time - 5 years ago - that I did not have a very well developed adult self. I could only access that part of me in a really consistent way when I was around children, who needed an adult around. It was pretty painful to hear a very kind trauma therapist tell me that I have a strong overcapable teenager ego state, but not a very developed adult state. He told me, so it's time to parent yourself into that adult self.

I looked at him like he was out of his mind.

I have worked on it since. I now have a sense of self. Most of the time. Under really severe stress, I go back to being the person who picks up on other people's states and becomes them, or feels like I have no self at all, or I go back to regressive type of behaviors (like being a slightly rebellious teenager with no communication with the adult me who can manage and meet the needs of that teenager without acting out in that state.)

When I'm in those ego states under stress, all the old walls come back, and it feels like I have no self or like I only experience my self as very disconnected ways of being. I eventually come out of it when, like the OP, I meet or manage the need of that state. According to my therapist, it is not so much the meeting of the need, but the internal connection of the state with other states of me. That's the key thing. He said that over and over until I was sick of it. Meeting or managing the need through connecting to other states is key.

It's so hard to explain what it feels like when the fragments are disconnected, and when they are not. I'm not DID, and this trauma therapist didn't think I was. But under stress (which used to be all the time) the states do become like really distinct states. Like if I was sad, it was all sad child justmehere. Now it's more like... ugh. so hard to explain. It's different. (I know, so descriptive.)

One of the things he said was that all the personality fragments (ego states) are all me. Just like all the states of Joe are all him. The self isn't the absence of those parts. It's bigger than the parts, because it includes the interaction and management of the parts. But for me, I have bigger walls between my parts than hypothetical Joe, so when those walls get thicker, all I can see sometimes is the parts, the walls, and not the cohesive self, and it feels like a big mess or like there is nothing there that is really me at all.

Ego State theory, and it's therapeutic counterpart of internal family systems therapy, has it's limits, and is just a theory.

However, on a topic like this, it makes a lot of sense. While everyone is describing different experiences, they do all seem like ways that everyone has built up defense mechanisms, walls, disconnections, between aspects/parts/states of our selves and/or a defense mechanism to the sense of self at all. It all seems like ways that we coped with trauma and the pain and emotions and threat to self that trauma is.

Hmmm... I probably have made a mess of explaining this viewpoint.

Ha, that's me the overly perfectionist justmehere kicking in and taking over from the justmehere who wrote the rest of the post. These two parts of me communicate well with each other, so they feel like all me. Just a slight shift in emotions, in state.

But if my abusive father was going to show up at my front door after years of being out of my life, the rebellious/pissed justmehere or childlike i-want-my-dad-to-like-me justmehere would probably feel like a very strong state, and I would struggle to connect to the adult me that can recognize, validate, and generally handle those needs. I've built up really strong walls to those parts of self, so when I feel those states, it's harder to feel like it's me, or consistently me.

Or many times, I just feel like no self at all. It's a "solution" to the stress and pain of feeling the abused parts of self, the "wounded parts of self" as this old trauma therapist used to explain to me. If I don't have a sense of self, or if I take on other people's states, it means I don't have to face the pain that as a child, felt like a threat to existence.

Somehow, as helpful as some of this Ego State theory has been for me to understand, it also is frustrating. For me, it brings up how unfair trauma is. I should have had parents who could have helped me developed a well integrated sense of self, with the ability to easily connect my ego states/personality fragments, and not had to "re-parent" myself into developing this.

 

[sun seeker]

I'm going to comment as I read, or I know I'll forget stuff. This looks like a very helpful post @Justmehere, thank you for sharing!

I used to struggle with the sense of not having any sense of self. I felt like a chameleon.

I used to say exactly that. Chameleon. Used to, because my ability to be a chameleon is completely lost. I not only don't have a sense of self now, but don't have the ability to be a chameleon, either. You could say my chameleon died. As I recall, for a long time I would try on different personas almost like different clothes without realizing they weren't actually me. Then I became more self aware and knew they were not actually me, but couldn't figure out where "me" was under it all. Then, with this breakdown, the ability to adapt or camouflage or whatever a chameleon does was gone. It's a little like being left without any skin.

I should add that when I talk about trying on different personas, this is different from regressing to different stages of childhood. I'm having trouble remembering whether I have done that all my life or just in the last few years since beginning to remember the abuse. I think the latter. But anyway, these are two distinct phenomena for me. The other was more like taking on the characteristics of people around me to gain their approval, only saying that doesn't do justice to how it felt. It wasn't a conscious choice, it was more like a programmed response that I had next to no control over. (Like you, I'm struggling to find the right words here.)

Joe experiences all these "states" of himself, which are personality fragments in ego state theory, as all being him.

Right, that would be the difference. He experiences them all as part of his personality.

When trauma happens, especially developmental trauma, it can become dangerous to have a self at all.

This (it being dangerous) is a new thought for me. Do you mean (or does your therapist mean) because having a self means feeling the trauma instead of dissociating it?

It does make a lot of sense to me that dissociation or not, it is a defense mechanism to not feel any connection or sense of self. It is a way to cope with the pain of trauma, of the threat to self that can come with trauma.

So this means the self does exist, but there is a disconnection from it. I'm trying to decide what I think about this. If the sense of self has not developed because of developmental trauma, does it exist in some state dissociated from the rest... or does it not exist at all?

My therapist said anger can be a wall to never connect with a depressed ego state.

And possibly also vice versa?

Meeting or managing the need through connecting to other states is key.

Do you have an example of this?

For me, it brings up how unfair trauma is. I should have had parents who could have helped me developed a well integrated sense of self, with the ability to easily connect my ego states/personality fragments, and not had to "re-parent" myself into developing this.

Yes. Sigh. Not much to say here but "yes."

Sorry to make this all about me. This is causing me some distress and posting about it helps me sort it out in my mind.

 

[Chava]

So yes, identity stuff. I realized I don't have an identity and have been latching on to other people's identities, which has disastrous results but allowed me to survive until now.

That makes sense. I relate to chameleon stuff too. I think it morphing out of that I have isolated more because I don't know how to be "me" around other people very well at this stage. It's a weird process. I definitely have roles that help me and things I like doing all on my own. But in relationships I am either completely avoidant or get sucked into the other person's personality, needs, whatever I am reading. It's been helpful to have a reverse of this in therapy...learning to try to listen to and express myself, and have my therapist responding more to me. I think some people do well with structure, but I do better with a more process-oriented therapy that has the therapist doing a little more of following me. Because that is definitely harder for me, but more constructive.

I don't think this is all bad. We survive for years and decades as chameleons. Getting beyond that requires a lot of patience, and for me, allowing a little isolation but also being selective about who I hang out with (feeling that in their space I am still "me" vs too easily pulled into being them, or whatever...sounds weird but I sense you get it...). I was totally at the mercy of my mom's moods growing up.

In adulthood I've been drawn to angry people as the person who could also be bitchy but somehow pacify or mediate the situation. That's not all bad because most people avoid conflict or people who feel threatening. Not me!! So I'm trying to appreciate that I can still do this well, but consider what kind of people could actually be "friends"...vs simply find myself placating other people and fixing conflicts at work, etc.

 

[Powder]

I would go one step further than attachment theory in that I think that personality and "I" or consciousness is, at least for me, never a solitary identity and is highly influenced by others around me. There seems a blurred line between self and other.

 

[Chava]

"I" or consciousness is, at least for me, never a solitary identity and is highly influenced by others around me. There seems a blurred line between self and other.

Thanks @Muse I feel like that is what I was referring to, but you use different language. So thanks.

I feel some shred of self in isolation, why isolation feels safe and has actually increased with trauma work. And I am not completely cameleon in response to others, but I am easily a different self. In some respects, I know that's fine. You don't use the F word around your students or you boss or your kids, etc. We have "roles". But in close, or friendship connections, I lose my "self" and disappear into other or void. I think this is quite common with childhood, early, or chronic trauma. It's challenging to know how else to "be". I practice "being" on my own. But am very timid right now around others because I am not sure where "I" go.

We totally hijacked this thread. But good discussion. Thanks. :)

 

[Hope4Now]

This is a totally interesting thread! Thanks for giving me a point toward it, @sun seeker !

I am reading and thinking and resonating here and there. So I added a bunch of quotes... I'm not feeling too bad about hijacking the thread...it says the OP hasn't been seen since the day after s/he posted. I hope s/he found a good trauma doc. Just fair warning, this is one of those endless Hope4Now posts...maybe something will resonate with someone too.

All of the puzzle pieces are on the table and I am aware of all of them, but because the pieced aren't put together I have no idea of who I am as a complete person (or in this case, a complete puzzle).

Yes...I talk about puzzle pieces too. In my inner analogy, the puzzle pieces aren't on the table (they're floating in the air), and it is dark, and there is no box for the puzzle to suggest where I might even begin to piece things together.

I kept saying that my brain was like a blank slate. I would be interested if anyone has further comments on this.

I've not had this experience. Mine has been more like...to give a parallel analogy...before the huge crash two years ago (there were lots of other ones starting around age 12-13...I know that now), my slate was quite neat and organized. I didn't like it much at all...it chafed on me the way running one's fingernail down a chalkboard would. But it helped me function and play all the roles I needed to play to build a life. And I managed to build a pretty decent life on the outside (at the profound expense of the inside which mounted up, with compounding interest, until it all blew apart in the fall of '13.) Now, my slate looks like some mad scientist has scribbled and scratched all sorts of equations on it in different colors and overlapping to such an extent that it is pretty much unrecognizable as anything useful at all. There is just too much f-ing stuff going on all at the same time. I just never knew it. Or chose not to. Or something.

Where do my blank slate moments come in? There are those too. I get lost ALL the time. It is ridiculous. Nobody can believe it. For instance, I have driven to my Mr. Famous Psychiatrist's office at least 8 or so times. I always manage to get there on time because I leave really, really early. I don't think I have ever arrived via the same route. My iPhone mostly saves me these days because of the gps in it. My brain simply cannot map space or direction. I have learned, over the years, to use maps. But I continually get lost. I am learning to accept that this is just one of my many limitations. Hmmm. What else? I forget how to cook sometimes. (Thank god for the How to Cook Everything cookbook...it is my equivalent of gps for the kitchen). I forget how old I am fairly regularly. I mean like seriously. I have to do the math for the year I was born. I forget how to take a shower sometimes. It goes on and on and on.

I am pretty sure most of this stuff happens when I am scrambled up with some part that lacked these skills. The flip/bonus side is...I climbed a tree pretty darned quick a couple months ago. I made a decent campfire when I went camping. I sang through a whole Irish ballad without even realizing I knew it. So somehow, some things stick.

Not sure why some things stick and others don't. I'll leave that for the neurologists who specialize in episodic and procedural memory.

I can think and feel. I just don't have a personality left. I do feel cut off from my surroundings and other people, and I've used the words "empty shell" as well.

I can think. Most of the time--even somewhat in total body hijack/shutdown mode. Feeling is a whole foreign thing to me that I am just beginning to glam onto. It kind of sucks, but some of it is rather delightful. I refer to my personality these days as: f*cking weirdo, crazy-lady, queer, and--a nicer word: adaptable. Adaptable is probably a little like what people are saying about being chameleons. I suck at being a chameleon though. I just generate or dredge up some part to fit whatever the occasion is. None of them feel like me. "Me" is just a theoretical concept to me. I am working rather hard at getting "ME" to connect up with all the parts. To embrace the idea that my SELF is the holder and negotiator of all the parts. I am most definitely not there yet. But using the language of Internal Family Systems therapy is hugely enormously helpful.

It doesn't feel dissociative. It's more like I became aware all of a sudden that who I'd thought I was, was an artificial construct, and I couldn't keep it up anymore. At all. Like, from one day to the next. No. More.

I completely resonate with this. Same thing with me. It just didn't happen all of a sudden. It was like a slow avalanche starting at a particularly crisis-y/traumatic moment when I was around 40, then haunting me for another 8 years or so until I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle and somehow also cracked up some of the very powerful walls I'd constructed since childhood. But then it still took another year or two to realize that if I tried to "keep up" anymore, I would most certainly die. So I'm not much trying anymore. At least relative to the way I used to function.

Sort of. Yet probably more like a deep freeze...like I am a baby animal and the wolf is right beside me. I'm still and so far...not noticed. Feel that...there is no "me" or constellation of thoughts or feelings or sense of self. Just freeze and void.

I get this. I even had this experience in actual external reality during a near bear attack in the White Mountains. I got to experience really, truly, what "freeze and void" feels like. It is hideous. Because I guess for me, there is always some piece that isn't void even though it is frozen. There is some vague awareness there of the horror that is happening or about to happen...but the body can do absolutely nothing. And it is not even "me." "I" am way out over there somewhere watching the whole thing.

Wondering who I am. Confused as to why I care about the things I supposedly care about, confused as to why I want to push through with these career options that I've laid out for myself. Confused, as I simultaneously feel completely connected to my body, calm and in control, and watching myself from a distance as I move like a robot through the actions of my days.

Oh, dear, this sounds so very familiar. I'm sorry. I have come to understand that I have basically lived more than half my life (I'm 51) in some part or another, none of whom were/are integrated with "me." I lost myself a really, really long time ago. I am just beginning to find it again. But it has been so deeply buried under all the parts that bringing it to light has been a grueling and painful and terrifying process. It still is. I ain't there yet, by any stretch. But I've had enough moments of SELFness to want it so very badly.

I have issues with me-other being simultaneously real. That might sound like it matches up with "fake" but that doesn't really describe it for me.

No, me neither. I have simultaneously real selves. They are at constant war with one another. It is very, very, very ugly inside of me. On the outside, it's less obvious. I have become a master of going through the motions pretty well when I'm not even there. I even watched a lecture I gave that is on you tube. It was the last public speaking event I did because it freaked me out. I was aware that I was completely separated inside and outside somehow. It sounds weird, but this is my life. On the outside, I was functional. I did a decent job, or so the evaluations said. I know my stuff and if I can get into that auto-pilot mode, I can do it. But that night I was painfully aware of my inner chaos that was existing simultaneously to my outer presentation. Through most of it, I was convinced I would pass out or puke or just hightail it out of the venue right in the middle of being the keynote presenter. It wrecked me for several weeks afterward. Neither was "fake." The outer one was the professional/academic/researcher/performer part. Inside...lots of scrambled parts vying for attention.

But, I have to caveat - there are moments where I feel connected, normal, regular. But then there are other moments, most of the moments, where I'm just so, so baffled by myself and who I am.

Yes, me too. Have you ever read Ralph Waldo Emerson? He has a famous passage called the "transparent eyeball." It is quite moving. I think maybe it was the first time that I got validation for those moments of clarity and connectedness I've experienced in my life. What he described was exactly what I felt. Like suddenly, everything was connected and fine and safe and exactly the way it should be. I get moments like this every few months or so. They are fleeting, but have given me the taste of what it could be like to be an integrated human being, and I WANT it for myself. It is what keeps my from offing myself. It is what keeps me hoping.

And then there are the moments where I just check out completely, and can't remember what happened later. I can't say anything for those moments about who I am or who I am not.When I'm a mess like I am now, I have no idea who I am. Later, I can't remember feeling like this and feel completely connected, but then later I crash back into my confused self.

Yep. I have this too. Not as often as some of the other stuff (body hijacks where brain is still active; space-outs; etc.). I am not completely amnesic for everything. Some things I remember doing and saying, but I don't feel like it was me (depersonalization). Sometimes I remember things but am convinced they were not real...that I imagined all of them...and I have to ask people when it feels like it isn't too weird to ask (derealization). Sometimes I just have really vague sense of what happened...what I said and did...maybe some evidence that it was real...but it wasn't me--it was somebody else that looked like me and dressed like me and was living my life, but definitely not me. (This starts pushing toward dissociation as defined as being blended up and/or flooded up by parts). Then sometimes, I really don't know. I like to think I know everything I do and say. But increasingly, I am realizing that I don't. and that this has been true for a very long time, but I have gotten quite adept at covering it up so other people just think I am random and forgetful (and even snobby when I don't remember having talked with them or even ever having met them before). And covering it up even from my consciousness because it is WAY TOO SCARY to acknowledge things I don't remember.

I also have this thing of forgetting when I am/have been a mess. Especially if there is no evidence.

So for me, freezing, dissociating, and derealization are conditions I do deal with,

Yeah, these are all different. Although I am still trying to wrap my head around the word "dissociation" which seems to mean so many different things.

I think my confusion is related to this, to not knowing what I do and therefore what my experiences and desires are. How can I know who I am if I don't know what I do?

Great question!

this is more like something in me snapped and I just knew, from one moment to the next, that I had been holding on by my fingernails all my life and I absolutely could not keep holding on any longer.

I understand this completely. It happened to me too, but my plunge into the abyss was slower.

When trauma happens, especially developmental trauma, it can become dangerous to have a self at all.

Yes yes yes yes yes! Your t is smart about this. Because of early trauma, our protector parts jumped in and became US. It is really, really hard for them to accept that they don't have to do their really extreme jobs anymore.

According to my therapist, it is not so much the meeting of the need, but the internal connection of the state with other states of me. That's the key thing. He said that over and over until I was sick of it. Meeting or managing the need through connecting to other states is key.

Yep. I'm guessing you have IFS therapy? I've internalized my own therapists voice to such an extent that I don't even need to call him much because I know what he will say. Be with your parts. Notice them. Listen. You don't need to act, just listen. Witness. Ask if they can see you. Ask if they are aware of each other. Etc.

The self isn't the absence of those parts. It's bigger than the parts, because it includes the interaction and management of the parts.

YES! It has taken me two full years of lots of therapy to begin to accept the reality of this. And it is helping a LOT.

If the sense of self has not developed because of developmental trauma, does it exist in some state dissociated from the rest... or does it not exist at all?

My t ("yoda") might say that the self is always there. Always has been, always will be. It is larger than all the parts. It holds the parts...literally in the physical and brain sense, and more broadly/spiritually in the layers of energy that make up the self, the "mind," beyond the physical manifestation of the self. It is not dissociated. It is there, patiently and calmly waiting to provide it's services to care for all the wounded parts. If they will give it some trust and space.

I think that personality and "I" or consciousness is, at least for me, never a solitary identity and is highly influenced by others around me. There seems a blurred line between self and other.

YES! I love this! There is no solitary "I." We are always linked (consciously or unconsciously) to those around us. I'm just recently learning that the trick is to gain a sense of SELF boundaries. Physical ones...like living inside your body instead of outside...and energetic ones...like distinguishing what is MY energy from what is YOUR energy. I am not very good at this and I end up being a kind of drain for all the emotional baggage of all the people around me, and I lose myself in it. I am working very, very hard to teach myself how empathy feels different in my bodymind than compassion. They are linked but very, very different. When I can feel my boundaries and accept them, I can be compassionate and very helpful to others without draining my SELF. When I lose my boundaries, I get this kind of hyper-empathy thing where I think peoples thoughts and feel their feelings, but I am absolutely helpless to do anything at all about it, and it is horrible. Shuts me right down.

Not sure if this is what you were talking about.

:) If you got this far reading this endless post...well, thanks. I'm not sorry I wrote it because, in a very selfish (lol SELF-ish) way, it helped me to articulate and process some really intense stuff I am going through right now. So thanks for listening.

 

[Ronin]

Re: How can I know who I am if I don't know what I do?

Personally I go by motive(s). Remembering the why I do stuff (and who for, as an attachment person, which doesn't have to coincide with who I do things for more directly). It's enough to clue me in years after; remembering the reasons, as strong enough drive, and usually strong enough touch with a sense of 'this is my life' years after, and isn't dependent on how sideways my feelings are or if I feel at all.

 

[Ellabella44]

HUGE YES to all the above!!!! This very thing is how I found this site! And why my diary is called fixing what is broken.

Im trying to put my fragments together and hopefully function better. A friend from another site had this as well and urged me to "parent" them.

At times I'm one or two of me. Sometimes in therapy several pieces come up. It's a push forward into shifting to a who instead of a mood.

To explain complex things I have to physically change seats and then a shift into a more intellectual self divorced of emotion happens ( think Sheldon Cooper on big bang theory)

Going there is actually a relief if I'm anxious or stressed. Sometimes I'm lost and stuck in childmode with fear I never had time to feel.

Sometimes it's stuck in protector mode - looking for someone to just come get me so I have something to fight, because I had to get my brother to a room that was safe and be ready to keep him safe in case our father ever decided he needed more targets than our mother.

There's others, as well for other things. My t says the structure is there to function better. But to me shifting gears is a bumpy ride as if my gears are worn down on a very cracked sidewalk while riding a bike.

 

[Malca]

I have five different personality fragments. They are all portions of my entire personality...

Hi, I totally relate to what you describe and I think I also have a fragmented personality. BUT I've found that using IFS therapy techniques has normalized this fragmentation into parts- which we all have- but in the fragmented personality are much more extreme and liable to take over when it senses any sort of perceived threat to (its) your safety. IFS is very helpful in helping me to understand and work with my parts.

 

[Hope4Now]

IFS is very helpful in helping me to understand and work with my parts.

Yes, yes, yes. This is the kind of therapy I have been doing for around 2.5 years and it is very helpful. My parts are not terribly cooperative, but at least I am gaining some better understanding of how my personality functions. Glad to hear of someone else who is on the IFS path to healing.