Dissociative Identity Disorder

[Ribonuke]

Anyone else here suffering from it? Didn't occur to me this might be a lifelong issue for me until I took a few online screening tests and did some reading; even the CHILDHOOD checklists match up more closely than my diagnosis of "autism" ever did. Ever since I had a few babysitting experiences gone wrong, I've never felt like my reflection is my own; it only belongs to the meat-suit I'm stuck inside. My name sounds foreign to me as well. I remember as far back as in kindergarten feeling distanced from my own name; when people would call my name, "Shane," I would often miss it. Furthermore, people have joked about me having "split personality disorder" or "multiple personalities."

Some people have tried to argue that cognitive functions alone may be responsible for split personality issues, but the way I process information and my cognitive functions change so drastically over the course of the day that I almost have to wonder if each "personality" has a separate MBTI type:

Personality 1 (when I'm neutral): ESTP/INTP
Personality 2 (comes out when I'm in charge): INTJ/ESTJ
Personality 3 (comes out when I feel defeated): ISFP/INFJ

Anyone else have any issues with this?

 

[magpie]

I have similar issues though I don't have actual alters. If you want, you can PM me and we can talk in depth there. I don't really feel comfortable sharing this sort of stuff in the main part of the forum.

Having different cognitive functions come out in different situations isn't necessarily indicative of multiple personalities. It depends more on your awareness and relationship to each personality. That you're calling all three personalities "I" makes me think they aren't actually alters.

 

[dougvincent1138]

Hi Ribonuke,

My name is Leyna, and I am a "part" or "alter" in the system of Douglas Vincent. In other words, I have dissociative identity disorder. You can read more about my specific story here:

https://www.typologycentral.com/for...1-hello-introduce-myselves-4.html#post2947774

and here:

My Struggle To Be Real - dougvincent1138 - Wattpad

and here is a post from this forum by one of my "internal siblings", Louise:

How sharing my brain with other personality types has helped bring balance to my own

And here is a link to a description of DID that is pretty accurate for the most part, although there are a few things in this description that are a little bit outdated, and beginning to be questioned a bit.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) | Psychology Today

Specifically, one of the main things that this definition states that is beginning to be questioned is the treatment of DID. The part about medication is definitely correct: medication cannot cure DID, only help to manage the secondary symptoms. But the method of trying to merge all of the parts/alters back into one identity is no longer considered to be the only option for treatment. In fact, our current therapist doesn't believe that it's even possible, and this fits with our own personal experience, because we tried to do it for nine years before we met our current therapist, and didn't have any luck with making it stick. However, our therapist taught us how to work through our issues from our trauma as individual identities, and how to work together to support each other and have a healthy, productive life as a "team" or "family" of people sharing one body/mind.

Also, one thing that I personally would clarify is that although amnesia of memories is a requirement for diagnosis of DID, that doesn't always mean "external world" memories. For most DID systems, they do have at least some loss of memory when other parts are "out" (in control of the body). But we are a bit unusual in that our mind chose to keep the secret of our DID from ourselves by forgetting the INTERNAL memories. In other words, we remembered what happened when other parts were out, but we didn't remember what each one of us was doing in our internal world before we came "out". Because of this, it seemed to us like we were all "Doug", even though we were not. We didn't find out that we were multiple until the age of eighteen, which is when Doug first became consciously aware of me, Leyna, and we began to interact with each other. We found two other parts during those first nine years that we were misdiagnosed, but then when we finally got a proper diagnosis of DID, we began to find quite a few more. We now know that there are 70 of us.

The reason I mention all of this, is that it seems to me like, IF you have DID, you probably have a similar situation with your memories. It could be that your various parts are remembering each other's external memories, but not remembering who they are internally. But I should stress that it COULD be that, it also could not be as well. I am not a mental health professional, and none of the rest of us are, either, so we are not experts at diagnosing someone as DID. My advice to you would be to try to "talk" to the other selves you mentioned, and see if they answer. If the only thing that answers is your own thoughts, you probably don't have DID. But again, you might not want to take that as the "gospel" so to speak, that's just my own opinion. I would also advise that you try to find a therapist who specializes in treating DID, and have them test you for it. There are written tests that you can take to be diagnosed for DID, and that's how we finally got a proper diagnosis, because we finally found a therapist who knew about those tests and knew how to treat DID. I wouldn't advise just going to any therapist and talking about DID, because unfortunately, there are still many therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists who either refuse to admit DID even exists, or refuse to diagnose it because they don't want to admit that they don't have a clue how to treat it. DID, unfortunately, is probably the most misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and denied mental disorder out there.

I hope the information I have given you helps. I hope you can find the answers you need to find about your self, or possibly your selves.

Take care!

Leyna Vincent of the Doug Vincent system