Multiple Personalities Support Group
Dissociative identity disorder is a diagnosis described as the existence in an individual of two or more distinct identities or personalities, each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. At least two of these personalities are considered to routinely take control of the individual's behavior, and there is also some associated memory loss,...
How do you know you have alters? I went through this a number of years ago. Ive never had counseling. I am looking for a counselor now though. I always thought it was normal to have a constant inner dialogue. I thought yelling at myself and telling myself to shut up was normal too.
Do alters have to have names. I can see 3 different parts of me. A child, a teenager and an adult. I dont remember much from my childhood. I only recently started remembering bits and pieces. I wrote a journal entry once (not here) where I talked about the "other" mes. Is that noraml. Does everyone feel seperate from parts of themselves? I see these others and I think of them as being seperate people inside me. Does that make any sense?
Now I should say that Ive never had major amnesia in the present day. I do have a tendency to only remember the necessities though. A year will go by and I wont remember a thing about it. When I say major amnesia I mean the kind where you dont remember meeting people but they know you, drawing pictures and not remembering etc..
I feel like Im rambling now but do you get what I trying to ask?
Do alters have to have names. I can see 3 different parts of me. A child, a teenager and an adult. I dont remember much from my childhood. I only recently started remembering bits and pieces. I wrote a journal entry once (not here) where I talked about the "other" mes. Is that noraml. Does everyone feel seperate from parts of themselves? I see these others and I think of them as being seperate people inside me. Does that make any sense?
Now I should say that Ive never had major amnesia in the present day. I do have a tendency to only remember the necessities though. A year will go by and I wont remember a thing about it. When I say major amnesia I mean the kind where you dont remember meeting people but they know you, drawing pictures and not remembering etc..
I feel like Im rambling now but do you get what I trying to ask?
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I have been here before, a long long time ago and now I am back.Forgive me for not just saying what I want to say,even under a triple dose of antidepressants it is still raw and seeping and I am hesitant at revealing it as at least under the bandages around my heart I don,t have to look at how raw and wounded.My child was cleaved from my heart by his own actions. my child of ten,turning eleven...
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theatre and I are there already. I'm having a very berry tea with crackers, cheese and cherry tomatoes and she's having a joint with some beer and we're both on really comfy recliners on thick pile carpet. we need some help with the decor if anyone is around??
I missed a lot of time as a child - lost whole grades of school and summers due to active alters. It was only when I turned 40 that all this started to come together in a way I could recognize & I was able to get dx'd. I still dissociate a lot and lose time, but my husband is almost always with me & he picks up on what's happening & can protect us.
I first discovered I had alters when I put 5 or 6 figures onto the sandtray for myself: my baby self, my 3-year-old self, my 6-year-old self, my 12-year-old self, and my current self. I just did it, figuring that was what everyone did.
Only later, when my current self threatened to bury the little children, did my therapist point out that:
1) I was about to have a crisis, and
2) None of her other (many) clients over the years had EVER put more than one self on the sandtray, at a time!
That's when she told me my diagnosis.
I had studied MPD & even counseled clients with it, with no idea that I had it, until that day.
So, "seeing" other parts of one's self is not what others in society do. Talking about "other me's" is not what others do. Thinking we have separate people inside ourselves is not what others do. Not remembering YEARS is not what others in society do, unless they were traumatized, as well, & have PTSD.
Yes! It sounds like you have alters! You don't have to name them. Like dolls in a collection, names are just a convenience, although some alters may demand to be called by a certain name.
In the Autism Spectrum Community they use the term "Neurotypical (NT)" to describe persons without Autism Spectrum-type brains. I wish we had a similar term. "Unifieds (U's)"?
Then we could contrast ourselves to others without having to use terms like "normality."