DID Dissociative identity disorder/ multiple personality disorder

[PepperAnne]

I am looking for help and information from anyone who is a sufferer or supporter of DID/MPD. I have recently been diagnosed and I am feeling very alone and scared. Which sounds sort of funny considering I am never really alone.

I am looking to learn more about what works for others as well as hearing first hand accounts about what your experiences are. Also if you know of any good books to help me learn more about how to cope and manage.

thank you,
PepperAnne

 

[amethist]

Hi PepperAnne

You may find that there are only a few who have DID/MPD on here, this being a forum for PTSD.

Have you tried searching for a forum that supports those issues. ??

 

[PepperAnne]

These issues are related to my C-PTSD and my alters are all children, brought on by my childhood abuse. I sort of don't really fit in completely, anywhere it seems. I have tried searching the web for support and I have been unsuccessful in finding anything. Since this site seems to have lots of people with C-PTSD, I thought it was worth a shot in finding support here for that issues as well. Thanks for the thoughts though. I really appreciate it.

 

[amethist]

This might help a bit. There are few threads on this though.

[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/wiki/dissociative-identity-disorder/[/DLMURL]

 

[PepperAnne]

Thank you again. I really appreciate your help.

 

[Eleanor]

My H dissociates - not MPD tho - but he gets, like, displaced in time. What were you wondering about? it might be that similarity would be enough to help...

 

[PepperAnne]

I was wondering if there were any good books on the subject. I don't fully dissociate and Switch Personalities often, and most stuff I have been able to find is about switching and living multiple lives etc. I am looking for a source of information on a more intergrated level.

 

[Abrasky]

Dissacotiative personalities in PTSD is just a dissacotiative state which is really really intense. Dissacotiative states are is like spacing out into your memory times 10. I have been diagnosed with PTSD and I have not been diagnosed with DID. 2 of my psycholgists have told me I have personalties. Dissacotiaton is actually very common in PTSD, it is just that it happens at different levels.

I wasn't diagnosed with the personalties until my 10th year of therapy, due to it being under a lot of external issues that my councelling had to wade through first. I wasn't aware of them being there until about the 12th year of therapy, they started coming up out of the woodwork.

You can get a lot of levels of dissacotiation. You can get spacing out, then personality moods (shich is what mine are and people say I am moody) or dissacotiative personalites which are full on.

Because i am aware of my personality states, they generally get pushed down so much, no one can notice them. My husband actually doesn't believe I have personality states, so there you go. So it isn't always noticable. I needed to bring them up and integrate them, as they were having arguements with each other under my subconsious and trying to stop me working. My psychologist calls my therapy "getting the real me to stand up.

And therapy has been quite successful. After 13 years of being unable to work for longer than a couple of weeks, I got a job and have been working for 2 months. So therapy for this can help a lot.

 

[Helliepig]

PepperAnne, I can relate to what you are writing. I haven't got a formal DID but I function "in someways like a multiple" according to my T.

I read some books from the sidran foundation which helped me understand in the early days of finding out I was dissociative, one in particular "MPD from the inside out" I found pretty useful, still dip into it sometimes now.

For me the complexity of dissociation is not too well represented in the descriptions of the various diagnoses along the spectrum. Reading about it, you could be forgiven for thinking it was quite a tidy thing, popping in and out of altered stated and forgetting things.. but as I've progressed into my therapy I have seen the multitude of subtle, complex and shifting sides of dissociation; from the loss of huge parts of my memory, to horrible frightening body and dissociated memories and nightmares, to the subtle white noise and headache blocks and confusion of the more minor parts( or, the as yet unexplored parts) Having parts of your life suddenly tumble into who you are, feeling that they are from another life, still you, but aged, different, odd. Having so many parts of you clamoring that you can't make a decision, or you can think too opposite things at the same time. Feeling so empty inside like there is nothing to you, that you could shatter any moment.

I think sometimes in the beginning people try to get a conscious handle on it all, I know I did, but I couldn't really see how it operated in me. Then I got my first experience of co-consciousness which was actually pretty frightening and beyond ordinary description. And I realized it was a whole world that is so uniquely personal yet contained such a generality. A way people survive, a general thing the brain does to survive.

I'm not sure I'm making much sense or answering your questions, but I just wanted to say, only by working through your own trauma does dissociation, or at least, your own brand of it, really start to make sense. It soon becomes crystal clear. Good luck!

 

[Red Feather]

I think my doctor might tell me in the near future that I have some form of a dissociative disorder. It is rather scary. I was recently in the hospital and the T told me straight out that I was having two distinct personality states. Two is enough for me and I think they are already starting to integrate. I am always aware and never forget anything. And really... healing the trauma will heal this, so a diagnosis could be irrellevent for me. I think the more the dissociative network wears thin and flashbacks come through, the more is coming out on to the surface, and the more integration will take place. I sense another part of me and I also sense two contradicting voices. I sense a part of me that doesn't want to get better, but it is getting weaker. This is all a good sign.

I am also interested in this discussion because complex trauma is such an confusing and controversial phenomena.

Does anybody get flashes of light, like flashbacks without the image? If I get flashbacks they are very fast. And sometimes no image, just a jolt, and the feeling of energy moving very quickly through me.

 

[Helliepig]

Yes I get jolts. Often in sleep, terrifying jolts that wake me up. Or sudden sensations of coming to, whilst awake, as if I've been somewhere else, but very momentarily. That freaked me out to start with, but once I got used to it, and knew what it was, it just is an unpleasant thing.

I've had alsorts of bizarre experiences, bordering on neurological symptoms sometimes.

 

[angel2write]

I would also like to find some reading matter on this as my Googling hasn't turned up much.

I have some different dissociated personality "modes" I seem to switch to or get knocked into by certain kinds of stress. It's not DID, but knowing that it's not that doesn't help me know what it is or what to do about it.

I thought the statement in the wiki that having not-fully-realized alters was a common experience for people with PTSD from child abuse was interesting. I'd like to learn more about it. And about what people do about it. I presume that integrating these dissociative states would be easier than integrating actual separate personalities, but how does one go about doing it?

I've been working on this for a while, trying to catalog the "modes" (for lack of a better technical term- I don't know enough about this to know what a real psychologist/psychiatrist would call them.) I've been trying to figure out what brings them to the surface, why I switch, what sort of situations each one was developed to handle, and what memories and issues each one specifically carries. It's been helpful for both me and my husband. But I feel lost at sea. I don't really know how to heal this issue.

Anybody? Will just keeping going with the trauma therapy eventually do it? Or are there special techniques you've found helpful, Maze? I'm not in therapy at the moment, so the work I'm doing I'm pretty much doing on my own.