Is It Possible To Develop Multiple Personalities Late In Life?

[Deleted member 20978]

I'm sorry if I can't make too much sense. I'm afraid what's going on with me.

Is it possible to have childhood trauma and then later new trauma that causes multiple personalities to form? I keep having experience of being little boy, before early bad trauma happened. The future all seems like memories I'm trying to suppress. Its all backwards. I feel scared but don't want grownup me to come back. Like he fled and left me alone.

I'm sorry I'm not as good with words. I don't know how bad this is, what's happening. I want help. Someone please help me.

 

[LisawithPTSD]

It sounds very possible. I haven't experienced multiple personalities but I have had later in life trauma that brought earlier ones out. Can you describe it more? If not, thats ok. Putting it into words might help you figure it out.

 

[Abstract]

Hi Jemini,

No, apparently the first personality split needs to happen pre 5 years of age and so does does trauma which would involve repeated trauma pre this age. I believe that someone whose personality has developed in this way already could have further splits in adulthood.

Of course its very possible that someone could only become aware they had alters well into adulthood. I hope you find some answers. Take care.

 

[Powder]

Jemini, I'm sorry to hear this. You are under so much stress right now. You don't feel strong enough to face a new job alone with your wife thinking of leaving. This is a lot of stress when you have had so much trauma already and so little in the way of a solid system of emotional support.

Do you have any prescribed medication you can take right now? Like for anxiety or blood pressure that will help calm you down? And if you feel you are a child and unable to care for yourself, then you need to get into some quality care right away, such as letting a friend or your ex take you to the ER and be admitted for proper diagnosis and care until you are stable.

Nobody on the forum is able to help you decide if you have structural dissociation based on messages. You'll need a psychiatrist for that. Take care, Muse

 

[Powder]

Oh, and Jemini,
I have felt this way before, like most of my personality and self left, and left a basic autopilot program that felt young and not normally "left in charge" to hold down the fort.

Frankly, I don't qualify as DID, but I have fragments, which is the dissociative step just under that. Therefore, I think you may want to assume you have dissociation and just work from there, unless you have the classic DID stuff:
1. Often finding you are somewhere and not knowing where you are or how you got there (not sleepwalking)
2. Having strangers walk up to you and call you other names or seem to know you well but you don't know them
3. Find things in your home you can't recall ever buying
4. Hearing voices and sensing other presences
5. Experiencing lots of "made memories or ideas" that come from inside, but not "you"

Etc. If you don't have that, then you might not have DID, but you certainly are a candidate for what I have, Fragments.

This strange feeling will pass. It helps me to:

1. Get in a warm bath (when I dissociate badly I get really cold!)
2. Drink water, take calming meds if any are Rx
3. Call someone you can trust, and talk to them...talking, even though you think your voice sounds "not you" will help. Just tell them how messed up this feels and how you feel not yourself. You will find that saying it out loud helps you feel more grounded.
4. If this doesn't help within an hour or so, and if you can't take care of yourself or feel warm enough or if you are shaking, then I would go to the ER if you don't have a therapist to call and confer with about in patient help.

I'm sorry for double posting you. I just thought this might be more specifically what you could use if you are able to read this much. I couldn't when I'm like that, so this is for your carer/supporter to read and use as sort of "instructions" from a sufferers' personal experience only.

Much love, Muse

 

[Abstract]

Hope you are doing OK Gemini.

 

[littlelion]

I've read that you develop DID when the personality isn't fully formed (made into a "whole"). This happens during early childhood, so that when you grow up, you're a "whole" person, with one personality.
And then, if something traumatic happens, the mind can protect itself creating other parts (personalities), when the mind hasn't fully developed into a whole.

The question you're asking yourself, I've asked myself many times. I had a trauma at the age of 12, and I thought that maybe it wasn't young enough for DID to develop. Thinking about it, I've realized that there has been trauma before the age of 12 too (I think I've surpressed it as I don't really know what happened).

Also as Abstract says, it could be that you didn't know until you're an adult, that the alters didn't show up until later. Just wanted you to let you know that I can relate to what you've written. I hope you find some answers.

 

[presentjoy]

I hope @Jemini checks in today sometime. I can say that for him the trauma does go back far enough, in that sense.

I think the main thing right now is it's very scary for him. He feels very scared, unsure of what's happening. I'm trying hard to help take care of the little boy. It's sometimes more obvious than other times where he's at.

There's a lot of fear there about not having the grown up skills, but also maybe he's connecting to aspects of himself that were closed off and having a hard time with his grown up self being not okay with the younger self. I'm not sure and don't want to speak for him.

I encouraged him to talk to his therapist about it. They are doing EMDR but I did a search of my own for people who have experience with Dissociative Disorders and his therapist's name came up. I think she will be understanding if he talks about it with her.

I'm sorry J if this is too much speaking for you. It's not my intention, but I want for you to have support around this. This is scary, I know, but it will be okay. <3

 

[Abstract]

I hope he pops in here too and is OK ish.

I also wanted to say that there are many different variations on how much someone spits and DID where one part does not initially have any awareness of another is only one of those. I sometimes think it can be helpful to just look at the general topic and what the experiences are and go from there.

Personally I find it a little relieving to know that I can't develop full ANP (apparently normal person) splits as an adult if that did not first happen pre 5. I know it's not possible for me too for other reasons but when I am battling with myself in a way that feels intolerable it still helps.

I think most people with full DID will have absolutely no idea for a long time as they have no co-consciousness . Many with DDNOS probably don't too as they have just accepted things as they are.

 

[Deleted member 20978]

When it happens, I have access to all memories (I think) and I know that its 2013, but a lot of the "grown-up" me isn't there. Like I don't have all his faculties, or vocabulary and verbal skill, for example. Also, it feels like its 1978. A lot of stuff from then is more close to the surface. I can feel the layout of the apartment I lived in (and would move out of 2 years later, followed by a dozen or so apartments since). I can recall things I liked to eat, shows I would watch on TV. It's all like I'm there, except its not a flashback as I understand them.

Emotionally, I feel 6. I don't have more complex feelings, and I don't have as much anger as grown-up me either. I'm very very scared a lot, and feel helpless. I experience weird "intrusive" thoughts/feelings of grown-up me, that are disturbing and only last seconds. And the years from 1978-2013 feel like suppressed, like things I'm trying not to remember.

This state can last many many hours, until I sleep. When I wake, it is with a nghtmarish feeling of being here and now again.

I feel a lot like grown-up me has fled, or disappeared. I am aware he is gone and not sure where he is or if/when he's coming back. It's a bizarre feeling of being abandoned by myself.

I am not so much hung up on what this would be diagnosed as (unless its a very serious symptom of something I need to see a specialist about) as I am concerned why its happening and what it means. I know there have been a ton of abandonment triggers this year, and also completely overwhelming level of stress. I literally cannot conceive of how I put my life together to have a future. It feels like the future I was building has blown apart. So I can understand very broadly why I'd be experiencing more extreme things, but this "symptom" feels very extreme.

When I'm not 6 year-old me, I do not feel coherently like 41 year-old me. I have holes in my functional memory, and trouble with basic self-care. Can't shower or shave, keep saying I'll do things around the house but can't get out of bed at all. No concentration.

All I know to do is rest rest rest, and hope that I'll feel better. I'm scared this is not enough to put humpty dumpty together again.

PJ pulled up Sesame Street on YouTube for me the other night. It was really weird. I was transfixed. Also, Bob and Louise and Gordon and (Linda?) are all still on the show, which was also making it weird to keep track of what year it is.

 

[Powder]

Hi, Jemini,

A number of thoughts come up with words like "regression" and "inner child work" that may or may not be helpful right now. I think your stress levels have hit you and it's going to take some time for them to come down. Getting back to self care, where you can do things yourself, and not feel so tired, will be helpful.

Getting into a psychiatrist who is good with dissociation and developmental trauma will also help.