BPD Do you sometimes wonder if you have two personalities?

[evergreen]

I am seriously starting to wonder if I have two personalities or if this is a symptom of PTSD in general and has nothing to do with 'switching personalities'.

I have been diagnosed with Dissociative Disorder with Complex PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Dysthymia.

In the past, it seemed I had bipolar disorder. I would have very very low moods of inactivity and irritiablity and extreme sadness. Then I would feel better and be so excited I felt better that I would overdo it and seem manic. I was even diagnosed with bipolar disorder prior to the PTSD and other diagnoses I mentioned.

Now it is different.

My 'good moods' are true healthy normal moods. I feel well. I can handle things and do things and not get overly excited that I am functioning. I can be organized and productive and attentive. No more hypomania. This is GOOD news.

My 'bad moods' are still pretty shitty. I am usually in bed off somewhere else. They often occur after a trigger or an overload of triggers.

There is SUCH a difference. HUGE. I view the world entirely different when I am 'on' and when I am 'off'.

Does this sound like normal PTSD symptoms or do you think it could be more?

 

[Loveneverfails]

I can certainly relate. My guardian and my mother used to call my mood swings manic. (Though really I think it's hard to diagnose a person WHILE they're being traumatized and abused with any disorder.) Once I got free and sought treatment my moods began to stabilize.

Though I do have my ups and downs, only now without what would be categorized as mania. I feel like there are two sides of me. Someone who is hard and unwavering and someone who is soft and gentle. What I'm discovering about this is that after all the ups and downs and general moodiness, now that I'm evening out and slowly separating myself from the trauma, I'm having to rediscover who I am. It's like with a teenager being angsty as they figure out what they feel and believe as an individual for the first time.

No idea if that helps, but I do think those of us who have spent long enough being abused, lose our identities to the abuser and our trauma. Once we begin to heal...we have to grow up all over again, this time hopefully as our true selves. But my only real evidence of this is what I've experienced personally, so I feel like I need to state that this is all opinion, not documented fact.

 

[712xx]

I don't have to wonder; I know I do -- maybe more. I think of them as paradigm shifts. I know they are all me, but I feel very different when I shift. I have a charisma shift, homicidal shift, suicidal shift, very scholar-focused shift. My whole outlook on life shifts.

I have notes to myself through out the house, and am thinking of getting something similar tattooed on my forearm -- "This is a shift, only a shift. If you are feeling unnaturally horroble, it will pass. The negativity has passed before, many times, and will again -- hopefully to something more positive. You have good sense, good intentions inside you. Don't do anything major till this period is over."

 

[Zef]

Beyond the 'parts', I do have a sense of two personalities, but I attribute it to the amount of distress I am in.

When I am greatly upset or hurt, I am not a pleasant person to be around. I try to separate myself from everyone, for their own protection.

When I am minimally hurting, then I am more the person I want to be.

As time moves on, I'm beginning to see this more as a continuum rather than two separate personalities.

 

[Jen93]

I wonder a lot too, especially when I'm dissociating. It's not so much two personalities, but two different sides of me I guess you could say. There's pre-trauma me- the hyper, excited, slightly immature, happy me- you'll see her with my friends, or on Chat most of the time- I love her. Then there's trauma me- quiet, shy, nervous, a loner, clingy to her parents, - That's the me with my parents, my T, and every time I'm scared. She's also the one who gets in really down moods.

When I dissociate- it's odd. My pre-trauma me will show up in class when I'm supposed to be learning, and she'll sort of be like "Well, this book is long, I'm in a weird room, but nobody else is freaking out, so this must be normal- Oh my gosh this is so cool! I'll just play along so I don't seem like I'm out of place in this super-mature place with this super-long book and the boring person talking on and on." It's like, my thoughts will be the pre-trauma me, but she'll try to play it cool; I usually only start asking where I am or who people are if I have a "slideshow flashback" before, (Where the flashback rapidly happens, and then I'm back in the present, and it's like flickering, past-present-past-present). Those things are scary.

Anyway, I'm glad I'm getting pre-trauma me back. She was fun! Even if she only shows up with my friends; I hope someday the stupid trauma-me will learn to hit the road and that she's not wanted and then pre-trauma me will come back.

 

[Chincho]

I'm convinced I have two personalities. One of them is almost normal and the other is full blown PTSD symptomatic.

Sometimes it feels like there's a war going on inside of me.

 

[Naya]

This thread really resonates with me. It unsettles me a little too. I'm not sure I have my own experience with this issue clear enough in my head yet to be very articulate about it. To offer some hopeful feedback anyway, I'll say that I am finding it useful to give loving attention to the different aspects of myself that I shoved away (or tucked away for safekeeping) due to trauma. I'm learning to love and embrace them all - even the "bad" ones (like my rageful part and my despairing/suicidal part) by reframing them in positive ways. They all have a purpose. They don't exactly feel like separate personalities to me - more like compartmentalized thoughts/feelings/behaviors of my own - some quite intense. It can get very scary when one of the more intense "parts" is triggered. It feels emotionally overwhelming. It's getting better now that I'm back in therapy and focusing on this in particular.

I don't feel like I can be much clearer than that right now, but I did want to let you know that I can relate to what you're going through.

(Incidentally, I was diagnosed with PTSD in the early 90s, but I don't identify as a "Sufferer". Where a label is necessary for description, I prefer to call myself a Survivor.)

 

[evergreen]

You are all really wonderful. Thank you for your insights. I was so happy to come here and see I had several replies :) WOOP!! I am not alone !!!

Naya, you made complete sense to me--I like how you described it.

Chincho--I totally identify with that.

Jen93--It sounds you are well on your way, I am so happy for you!!!

Zef--You desribed it well. I feel that too.

712--I have thought about leaving notes around the house for me too!! I miss being able to channel my scholarly focused self. I wanted to get my PhD or at least Masters. I can't even finish my Bachelor's. And I am at times capable of Honor Student work, 4.0, all that. Blah, I have three incompletes right now from the last few semesters. I didn't even register this semester.

LNF--Thanks for sharing that all with me. I remember a state a few years ago when I felt I had to regrow up. Now, I feel my 'normal self' is pretty damn awesome and capable. It CAN be done!!! I was so blessed to find a girlfriend to comfort me and love me and give me special attention I had never received before. It helped me with loving and accepting myself and seeing my beauty. She was a true angel sent to me, and then God took her back home. I pray for something to come to you like that.

Again, thank you ALL. Much love and blessings and healing to every one of us :) xoxoxox

 

[freakofnurture]

I used to feel like I am four different people, based on the extremely different world- and self-image that I had, depending on the mood I was in. I even made a little graphic to help me sort things out, but I seem to have lost it. As far as I remember the moods were something like 'depressed', 'inspired', 'pissed at the universe in general' and 'medium rare'. There were overlaps between aspects of the world- and self-images.

This used to be a really tough problem for me because I was so full of doubt about how I 'really' am and how the world 'really' is. It made me feel like I was totally missing actual reality in at least three of my states of mind.

I don't know how I made the transition there - that the mood swings became less extreme and colorful because of my meds certainly helped - but today I see myself as the stage on which my moods do their little act. I accept that I can't know reality for sure but that 1. there are methods to assess it quite well, 2. I can deal with all the uncertainty by just not forming hard opinions unless absolutely necessary, 3. the subjective experiences I have do have their own legitimacy and are true in their own way but also 4. are transient phenomena without ultimate consequence.

Put into two easy sentences: I now understand that moods are just that and that they always pass eventually. Because I know which mood shows me which world/self I can just acknowledge their presence without acting upon them, intellectually as well as physically.

I hope this does make sense.

 

[Amora]

All the time! I go from this extremely sweet girl to this total monster who is mean, manipulative, lacks empathy, and so on. The shift is really scary. Before I was pregnant I was on lamictal and I noticed it much less.

 

[712xx]

It is scary Amora, to know I was a good person (or thought I was), then boom -- I hate everyone and everything with a broken moral compass. My ethics do come back to me eventaully, but it is scary to lose them for a time. Those shifts are really frightening (not in the moment), but afterward when my 'good self' comes back. I'm totally aware of most everything, and know it is all me -- but not ALL of me; like I'm in pieces and can only express those pieces individually.

I'm also scared to know what would I be if all those pieces were to one day be whole? I know how evil my mind can become; giving it the clever charasma and know-how of my other pieces is too alarming to even think about.

 

[Red Feather]

I have more than one personality. I also think it is a symptom of dissociation. I feel like in order to be normal I have to focus the other me and put it into a box or something like this. And when I can't do it, the other me has a lot of control over my thoughts and I pretty much can not function at all. Then all the bad thoughts and fear and panic can rush in. A trigger can do it.

It is getting so much worse now that I have a diagnosis, I'm starting to realize that I am in this daze and have so little control, that it worries me. I am like on a constant dissociation. Doing affirmations and looking for positive thoughts and feelings probably help put it all in a box again, but I am wondering how long I can go on carrying this box around. It is uncomfortable and plus anything can happen to make me get triggered again e.g. in a Relationship.

My doctor says I need to stabilize and my old therapist said the same thing too. So I am working on the getting the box functioning again. It's confusing but I also don't want to do a trauma-therapy. I really don't feel ready for that. How can I get some sort of feeling of stability and security?