DID What made you realize you had a dissociative disorder

[BlueAquarius]

Constantly losing things and putting stuff in strange places. Sometimes I have eaten food without realizing I did.

 

[DharmaGirl]

Me too @BlueAquarius! I woke up with a bagel under my pillow once. Huh? I would go in my room and see dishes. I hated that.

 

[D.Duck]

I didn't. It wasn't until after I was diagnosed and we began talking a bit that those disappeared moments while driving for instance, where I suddenly "wake up (I wasn't sleeping) on a curving on-ramp to a major highway, don't realize where I am and scared to hell I'm going to wipe out. I usually figure it out with a 1/2 to 1 minute or so but the lost time could have 10, 20, 30 minutes and I haven't got a clue what happened. Then there are the hypomanic episodes. I don't know if they're dissociative, but I sometimes don't remember anything from a multi-day event. Other people have to tell me even though I'm wide awake, talking, kidding around, giving speeches, etc. Really weird feeling.

I also space out, a lot. No idea how long but never considered any of this DID if indeed it is.

 

[Still Standing]

Just today my T mentioned that I had an episode of dissociation. Mine are momentary spacing out and daydreaming or seeing old memories. I don't have "parts" that I know of. I will suddenly not remember what was being said and have to ask for a repeat because I went into a black fog. I daydreamed most of my childhood away. It was the only safe and pleasant place to live sometimes.

 

[Angelwings]

Not look for a diagnosis just want to know if other people have similar experiences.

I have dissociative episodes where I don't really have another personality, but rather I am myself at, say age 5. I have the same name, I never remember my adult life, I don't retain memories from one dissociative episode to the next. Sometimes I'll be 5, sometimes 9, and so on and so forth. It happens after flashbacks or after intense sessions. I'm not sure if anyone else does this, but that's where I am.

 

[Ronin]

Getting beat up for something I havent done, and then realizing there is someone else altogether that fights like hell instead of just takes it, and that that someone is also all my escape routes and all my killing is acceptable if it saves our neck, where I disagreed off and on very strongly and rather wanted to watch pretty bugs being pretty.

 

[T2L]

I don't have any alters, but I started experiencing different forms of dissociation around middle/high school. I don't know if one form of dissociation of connected to certain things while another related to others, but I've experienced:

1) floating above my body watching everything going on
2) not recognizing myself in the mirror
3) just floating along like I'm not fully "here" but I still see what's going on around me... I'm just not don't plugged in
4) my dexterity decreases, vision dims or becomes tunnel vision, and hearing becomes muffled. This form I can feel setting in and I'm the most aware of... It provides a warning of sorts to attempt grounding techniques ASAP... It happens often in therapy sessions so I have something in my hand to focus on texture.
5) I want to crawl out of my skin. I don't feel connected at all to my body
6) I'll have the randomly I'm just "gone" then "wake up." Where I go...I have no clue... No thoughts, images, memories, vision, hearing... Everything shuts off. It used to happen often driving
7) most disturbing is the recent incident where I completely checked out at home, drove and got food, got home and ate it...I have NO recollection of doing this and it scares me... Who knows what the trigger was or if i put others in danger while driving.

I didn't think that all of these could be classified as an actual "dissociative disorder." It was my understanding that dissociative disorder only applirs to D.I.D... But I guess not? Can anyone explain this further to help me learn about it? Is there a benefit to knowing this as far as treatment methods go?

 

[Cactus Bloom]

I don't have any alters, but I started experiencing different forms of dissociation around middle/high scho...

Hi! I’ve had to do a lot of research on my own to figure out what was going on with me and even with me reading tons of books and reading about DID and dissociation related disorders on the internet it is still extremely confusing and frustrating because they’re so much conflicting information. I didn’t even know what DID was or what dissociation was until about 5 years ago. I’ve been living with it my whole life but it was all normal to me because I haven’t known anything different. I was first diagnosed with bipolar in my 20’s but I didn’t stay in therapy or anything because (now that I can look back) my personality was changing constantly so I was never the same person. Throughout the years, more and more trauma kept getting piled on and it just got tucked away as I continued to form more splits so I could keep functioning. I didn’t seek help until I got in trouble with the law and I finally knew something was definitely wrong and never wanted me to have that happen again so I finally got into therapy and started seeing a psychiatrist but I was just treated with bipolar. Well, there was the horrible depression that would come and go, manic episodes, eating disorders, OCD, ADHD, insomnia, obsessions, addictions, self-harm, suicide attempts, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD that became my list of diagnoses within 4 years of starting therapy. I was 35. I’m 43 now and I didn’t get the DID diagnosis until maybe about 6 years ago and that was only because I had interrupted my therapist (who only talked about herself most of the time but she helped me a lot with my legal problems) and asked her why it always looks like she’s at the end of a tunnel and I don’t really hear her. She stopped talking and asked how long that had been going on and I said it’s all the time and don’t know of a time that that never happened. So she sent me to a trauma therapist who gave me this really long questionnaire and after a few weeks he told me that I was highly dissociative and later was diagnosed with DID. I was unraveling during that time in my life and everything was getting out of control. I was fired from my job and was in a horrible marriage that made my life unmanageable so my personality states was constantly changing and I moved to a different state. I was on the run and everything was so chaotic so I didn’t stay in therapy. I still didn’t look into what DID really was until about 4 years ago when I finally left my husband for good and secluded myself. That’s when my inner world became active and I could actively hear my alters and feel the switching and more personality parts took over and one of them is the one that is obsessed with learning about everything to understand why I am the way that I am and why.

I was coming across information that said how rare DID is and you have to suffer from severe and horrific childhood trauma (the worst imaginable) to have DID. Also, there were a lot of things that didn’t match to my experiences so I knew I didn’t have DID then. But, I kept searching for answers to what was going on with me because I was decomposating really fast. It’s such a complicated and complex disorder and the progression of the symptoms is confusing and exhausting to say the least. No moment is ever the same. No hour, day, month or years is ever the same. I do not exist and never have and there aren’t even words to explain what happens to me. I have been officially diagnosed with DID by 3 different psychiatrists and a handful of therapists. The only reason I really care about having this diagnosis is for validation that yes, this is real. I don’t know if that makes sense or if any of this makes any sense whatsoever but I have found some very good resources that I can pass onto you that have helped me weed through the misinformation.

The book “The Stranger In The Mirror: Dissociation—The Hidden Epidemic” by Marlene Steinberg is one of the best books out there. Also “Coping With Trauma-Related Dissociation” by Suzette Boon is excellent! It is a workbook and I really recommend having this book as a must.

Having dissociation doesn’t necessarily mean you have DID. There is a scale of the levels of dissociation that people experience from mild to extreme. There’s PTSD with dissociation, Complex PTSD with dissociation, Borderline Personality Disorder with dissociation, DID and DIDNOS, Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, and Depersonalization Disorder. Some Dissociative symptoms are amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity confusion, identity alteration. An accurate diagnosis of any disorder should be undertaken by a specially trained clinician. But, I cannot stress enough to do your own research because knowledge is power. You do not have to have experienced the most horrific abuse imaginable to “get” DID. That is a myth. Dissociative disorders are not rare. They are more prevalent than previously realized because dissociative symptoms are elusive and hard to describe and remain hidden or silent so many people spend many years having the wrong diagnoses. Also, it is wrongly assumed that having multiple personalities is a very obvious and dramatic changes occur between personality states. That myth has been perpetrated by movies and the media when in fact many multiples are extremely high functioning and are able to pass as “normal” to everyone even those close to them and yet suffering tremendously in their internal world. This has been something that I struggle with because of how much suffering I am going through yet the majority of the time when I have to be around people or even just to go to my doctor, psychiatrist, therapist, whoever this happy personality automatically takes over so no one sees what is really happening inside. There has been times when the suffering was visible to others but it doesn’t happen often and I really wish I could show it because nothing is more frustrating than me just wanting to kill myself and sitting in therapy or with my doctor looking and acting so happy and explaining how I want to end my life and being told “You look so happy and you’re doing so much better than the last time I saw you!” Usually, the only time I get taken “seriously” is when the anorexic is online and I’m severely underweight because that can be seen.

I experience the kind of things you are describing constantly. Depersonalization, derealization, amnesia, identity confusion (don’t know who or what I am) and of course all the other symptoms of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and agoraphobia also. It’s safer to stay away from people and to seclude myself to protect myself from my many selves.

I hope something that I have said helps you a little bit and please feel free to ask any questions. I love helping others:)

 

[DharmaGirl]

I think DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder is indeed rare. Everyone dissociates to some degree, and you're right, it is a spectrum. Normal (whatever that is) is on one end and DID is on the other. Higher on the scale are the dissociative disorders. I am relived I don't have full blown DID, the thought of me having it makes me feel icky.

 

[Cactus Bloom]

I think DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder is indeed rare. Everyone dissociates to some degree, and...

I’m glad you don’t have “full blown DID” also so you don’t feel “icky”. It’s good to know how you feel about it so an I “icky” to you?

 

[Ronin]

I dont think that is how DharmaGirl meant it @Fionas74, while I cannot speak for others, but it sounded more like finding dissociation already difficult enough and D.I.D. much more, hence glad she does not have to deal with that particular issue... not that anyone with it is icky.

To lighten things up a little: hey, if D.I.D. people are icky, you can always just say only some of us (all puns intended)

 

[Cactus Bloom]

I dont think that is how DharmaGirl meant it @Fionas74, while I cannot speak for others...

Thank you for saying this:) I did take it the wrong way and I apologize DharmaGirl. I have to be honest that I have some pretty amazing “personality parts”! Never a dull moment that’s for sure!