She said that I was misdiagnosed with DID.
I was misdiagnosed with DDNOS! I am correctly diagnosed now as schizoid. The interesting thing about schizo-spectrum disorders is that it is
very, very common for us to both: have voices in our head that are distinct in personality
, as well as to construct personas that we then "step into" and act out. Once I realized that this was an actual schizo symptom, the new diagnosis made perfect and complete sense. I still have folks in my head. I still have instances where I involuntarily "switch" into acting like them.
But it is not a dissociated identity. My identity is generally stable, with interruptions from pieces that I constructed out of stimulus that's existed from the time I was 4 years old (imagery, voices, etc). I'm schizoid instead of schizophrenia because my psychosis is stress-induced and time-limited, but psychotic symptoms don't rule this disorder out either if that psychosis is transient and you are otherwise rational.
Even if you have full-blown schizophrenia or bipolar or whatever else, it doesn't mean your experiences were never real. What we understand about the human mind and how we cope with trauma (especially when dealing with a disorder that occurs in less than 1% of the general population, which is only
barely understood) when these disorders are present is really not fully determined.
My therapist said that it is likely I became involuntarily "fractured" because of my indoctrination into an armed group, I leaned on "personas" because that is what schizoids do when under severe stress. I used those personas to be able to survive committing extremely unethical/immoral actions. For example at age 8 I would tell myself "you are [Dragfoot/James]. You love torturing and hurting people, you get a thrill out of this. You LOVE doing this."
And I would like "shift" into acting like this dude who enjoyed torturing people. Stuff like this happens to me all the time. When I was actively engaged with synagogue, another persona I named Companion (she "wanted a human name" later, so I renamed her to Cece) took over and was the most hostess-y, flattering, "wife material" person I could be. Super religious, super observant, super complimentary to others, always hosting Shabbat etc.
As
me no one would ever expect me to be like that. It does look like an alternate identity. It is not really voluntary. But it's also not DID/DDNOS! The human mind be wild. try not to let a misdiagnosis get you down so much. Your symptoms are still real, regardless of what is causing them.
