Freak

[Sandstone]

All my life I have felt like an oddity, and been mildly bullied in environments like schools by classmates who recognised me as such. My childhood was strange in so many ways, beyond the abuse, and was inevitable that others would notice how different I was.

I had been anticipating that with therapy I would work through this, that I would realise it was all old childhood stuff. It was one of the things that filled me with hope when I was diagnosed with PTSD. I thought I would have less of a struggle to feel that I could belong.

I've just realised that the DDNOS label says I actually am abnormal. My mind functions differently from most people's. I am an oddity.

I am trying to console myself that this means my self perception was right, but it isn't much comfort.

 

[David Ferdinand]

Shoot Sandstone, hang in there. I feel what your expresing and I'm sure hundreds of other people on this forum feel the same way.

 

[Freedomfighter]

All my life I have felt like an oddity, and been mildly bullied in environments like schools by class...

An oddity? Nope, people who have something special to offer are not odd, they are wonderfully different and employ their capabilities in different ways. You would not believe, not believe how many hateful women harass me every day when they realize that I am smarter, more capable, and much more functional then they will ever be.

Can not believe that hate that such abusers spew out.

 

[ladee]

@Sandstone....I really hurt for you seeing yourself as a freak. Yes...you have more capital letters added to your diagnosis...but you are NOT a freak.
I know that nothing I could say would change your way of seeing yourself.
All the times I have read you here I see you as fragile..but never a freak.
If that's the case then Anthony should have named the forum....Welcome Freaks!
Every single one of us here feel like we don't fit in.Except with each other.
I was recently at a public function and even knew many people there. I socialized a little but isolated myself from the large group.
Social anxiety, issues I am dealing with in my life..and I kept wondering what I was doing there.
Somedays the only place I fit is inside my own skin. Other days I am dissociated and don't fit there either.
We are living breathing human beings. We are more than the capital letters we have attatched to us.
I know you are disappointed.
But I do hope that in some level you know many here care deeply for you. We don't want anything..and we are here for you.
Just wanted you to know that I do respect you and the battles you have.
You are SANDSTONE..you matter!

 

[Sideways]

You are unique...and as loveable as anyone else. DDNOS doesn't change your value as a human, it doesn't shake the quality of your character, which is evident here in your posts. And it definitely doesn't justify people bullying you, or making you feel 'less than'.

'Different' doesn't mean better or worse, just different. And different is okay - it really is. Am I a less worthy person for having DID? Nope. Just because not every is gonna understand how my brain works, doesn't chane my worth one iota. It just makes me, well, me.

And you, Sandstone, are you. Individual, unique, loveable.

 

[Deadman]

@Sandstone I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying your initial diagnosis was PTSD and they later changed that to DDNOS?

Either way I don't see anything wrong with being a little odd. Most of my best friends were. I am. I suspect there are a lot of oddballs here.

 

[Sandstone]

My initial diagnosis, in 2011 or so was PTSD. I have no-one to ask if the DDNOS is a supplement or a replacement.

What I am saying is that when I thought I 'only' had PTSD I could tell myself that the feeling of being different was a cognitive distortion. Yes, there were differences, because my childhood was strange, but I had overcome most of them and with therapy I could learn to overcome the belief that others saw me as strange.

Now I have to accept that actually my mind did develop in a different way. The normal integrative processes didn't get completed when I was a small child. Bits of my emotions and memories and perceptions of the world are split off, and are in conflict inside me. It is different inside my head from the average person. I hadn't known that. I began to realise it only with therapy, when I began to talk about how I think.

Before that, I had only had that conversation with my sibling, and we had the same childhood, so we agreed with each other that minds were structured as a series of boxes. I thought that was normal. I thought it was normal that trying to think about what was in my head felt like a fight for survival. I thought it was normal that there would be several answers, some with subsections, to a question about me. I thought t was normal to be able to switch off or defer a strong emotion.

I thought that my childhood and my PTSD had simply made me less good at hiding reality than most people. I assumed they all experienced the same thing, but concealed it, in exactly the way that I assumed everyone's family presented a good face but hid the truth. In exactly the same way as I thought everyone claimed to put on clean underwear every day, when in fact they weren't allowed it more than twice a week.

Now I find that other children actually had clean knickers, and that other adults aren't in two or more minds about everything. I am different, instead of just feeling different. It is a shock.

 

[ladee]

Reading and supporting you Sandstone.