Jimmy- Joe. I hope yu are in therapy and speaking about this. Apparently it is possible to invent an imaginary friend that acts out in ways that are inaapropriote for you. That it is not dissociative as such and can be problematic. Take care.
Admittedly I am pretty behind the times on this, and in the post that this one refers to I was talking like an idiot, I feel obliged to point out(out of embarrassment and the fact that my family has been misinterpreting me for years now, so im anal about it), you didn't seem to catch what I was describing.
I've been doing more "netsearch" (hope I just coined that), and talking to my therapist, and so I'm pretty certain I have been creating alter egos to deal with my PTSD, and I and every medical professional (22 months of residential treatment over 3 longterm units and 2 short term units) are certain of me having PTSD.
So what I'm saying is I'm actually rather dissociative, as is my brother, due to my dad being, well he disciplined by beating the tar out of us, I.E. the easiest thing to remember (almost all of my childhood is repressed, I started learning to forget things when my dad asked me about the bruises he gave me the night before, and i learned real quick to say "I don't remember", granted I've spent the past year digging into my mind because I'm tired of the pressure that builds up in my head(adrenaline apparently)_I know this is a gigantic runon sentence)
is that my dad was a major grammar nazi, so he would find something wrong with how i was talking
(I would get excited about something and end my statements inhaling, which apparently makes it a question, or i would mispronounce a word or use a word wrong) and start punching me in the face and chest and throwing me down, jerking me around by my ear or hair, picking me up by ear or hair, squeezing my nose(amazingly painful), kicking me if i stayed down too long (I was supposed to stand up and take my punishment like a man) and all the while demanding that I correct what I had done wrong, which of course he wouldn't tell me, so while I'm getting beat longer and with more power as i continued to mess up I'm reviewing my sentences to fix them because I know he wont move past that until I get it right, and I can't say it a different way, I have to say it how I originally said it and fix it. And I know it's only going to get worse because he's screaming how much of a selfish-rebellious-spoiled putz I am. So I figure it out by not feeling him hit me, and right now I'm pretty much describing a particular instance from the eyes of me as a little kid. And then after I fix it I start getting asked why I wasn't thinking about what I'm saying, which of course leads to more hitting until I come to the right answer which is invariably going to be that I'm a selfish-spoiled little brat, except I can't skip to that answer because then I would be lying since I was just trying to tell him what he wanted to hear. Once we get through that phase I then begin the getting hit for crying, and if I don't stop it's only going to get worse because real men don't cry. (Keep in mind that almost every punishment was like this, every day, every time he could get me alone, he would punish me for something. I even proved him wrong at times and I would get in trouble for being rebellious because he's dad and he's always right) HE would raise his hand and I would shut up.
I seriously hate him. I hate him with no room for any other emotion. He disgusts me, he's ruined my life and I hate him. I would honestly enjoy watching him die.
Oh yes and because I'm pretty overwhelmed by the fact that he denies ever having hurt us, I learned to keep my mouth separate from my mind so that I could say things quick enough (he would hit me for taking too long to answer, for stuttering, for answering without thinking
(LOL so I had to try and time my answers so they weren't too quick or two slow, when most of the time I think in chunks, it's like there is an image playing in my mind's eye that I'm reading out loud, so I would often have the answer to the question before the question was finished. In fact that still happens a lot lol, now that I think about it.
That's the curse of our family, we come to the conclusion before the story is finished, and are preparing our answers while the other person is still talking).
But I digress, it isn't an imaginary friend, even when I was 5 I knew that was retarded, I mean my parents are both genius level IQ, they wouldn't let me get away with such nonsense. It's an alter ego, or more, I haven't delved far enough yet, created to handle that pain and anger. (I stopped getting angry when I was young because I got in trouble for that.) Getting in trouble in my household wasn't getting spanked, grounded, put in the corner. I mean that's what it was when other people were around, but you KNEW you were gonna get it later. Lol grounding was nothing, I was grounded from 7th-10th grade (I got sent to treatment the summer after tenth).
Digressed again. I have a few "alters" running continuously, and the one I referred to as Dace, which I usually refer to as IT, is pretty obviously the one that feels anger.
I no longer remember what I wanted to say, or maybe I already said it, oh well.
And yes, I'm in therapy, we are looking into anti-anxiety meds for me since I'm pretty much going insane lol.