
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,...

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I went to the house i lived in til i was 6. i know that there was abuse from a brother when i was a teen, but a part of me that talked iwth my t. had told about something that happened in this old house. when i went there today, everything looked out of proportion, much smaller than i recall it (but that makes sense cuz i only have memories of it before i was 6...) but the picture i've had of this space had her looking into a door to a bathroom from the end of the master bed, adn the door is about 3 feet to the left of where i remember it. adn then, though this part was very vague, she said that the shower was inside that room (and it is) but she said it was to the right just inside the door and that there was a sliding glass door on it, instead the shower is at the end (straight across) adn it is a curtain not a door. i asked if it had been remodeled, adn they said no. it's possible the poeple before them did so, but it isn't like it's fixed up, it is old and i think is as it was origainally. come to think of it though there was a sliding door like that in another bathroom in my grandma's house, but it wouldn't be seen from sitting htere on the master bed, wrong house.
anyway, with all of htis, i've always been second guessing the "others" even though there's much to fit together with them and that some things i can't really agrue with...but this brings up major doubts and fears...what if i was thinking he did something he didn't do? what if i can't trust (and it looks like i can't) even the shady memories i do have???? i feel like such a jer,, like i can' teven believe myself, and that i did something very wrong and delluded myself for takin g what she said that i knew i didn't remember myself, only for it to turn out to be worg.
i'll go back to the old house my grnadma was in, adn i will look at it tomorrow, but i don't know what to do. i doubt myself so bad.
i know it shouldn't matter--that it's true about what my brother did, cuz those aren't flashes i remember them better (and i was older so i'm sure that's part of it) but my goodness, i was hoping for some reassurance that what she's told me thus far was ok or not...now that it's not, i don't know what i am supposed to do?
anyway, with all of htis, i've always been second guessing the "others" even though there's much to fit together with them and that some things i can't really agrue with...but this brings up major doubts and fears...what if i was thinking he did something he didn't do? what if i can't trust (and it looks like i can't) even the shady memories i do have???? i feel like such a jer,, like i can' teven believe myself, and that i did something very wrong and delluded myself for takin g what she said that i knew i didn't remember myself, only for it to turn out to be worg.
i'll go back to the old house my grnadma was in, adn i will look at it tomorrow, but i don't know what to do. i doubt myself so bad.
i know it shouldn't matter--that it's true about what my brother did, cuz those aren't flashes i remember them better (and i was older so i'm sure that's part of it) but my goodness, i was hoping for some reassurance that what she's told me thus far was ok or not...now that it's not, i don't know what i am supposed to do?
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He said, " I can see how the differences between the bathroom you saw and T's picture could be unsettling to you and everyone inside for different reasons. For what it's worth, It doesn't make me doubt anything. Memories and dissociative images can be complicated and interwoven. For example... seeing things from up high... when the memories come from being small... that is a combination of the sensory input and the dissociative distancing. As far as T's view of the bathroom. there may be some mix of dissociative imagery and the memory of the actual place. Maybe there was something about a sliding glass door that helped make sense of what was happening. It's also possible that what happened to her occurred in a different bathroom, but that the image/memory of "coming to S" was set in that bedroom. Does that make sense? The traumatic image/memory of what happened to T in the bathroom ties to a certain event, but the dissociative survival strategy... the way of dealing with the trauma and it's reoccurring memory.. may have involved "making it to S" which would require having the second part of the image be of coming through the bathroom door and struggling to get to her on the bed. I know it probably doesn't change the doubt, and it would have been nice to be able to say... oh, there, it's all cleared up... but I guess that's not what happened. Sounds like some of the details fit, and it will give us more to talk about when you get back."
i wish it were simple. i wish i could believe myself and not always question and wonder if i'm just saying things because i want someone to think something bad happened to me that was worse than what it was. i hate having holes in my memory. i hate knowing that there are bad things that happened that i do remember bits of and always have remembered bits of, but them feeling like they aren't enough, that they don't count. i remember being tied up to the bed, naked...to the 4 posts at the corners, and him sorting through condom packages. that's not even a flashback, i know it for certain, and he hasn't even denied it....but i don't remember what happened next so i think that i must be just telling that so that someone will think it went further. i don't feel it, i just see it. i just have always remembered that one (i was around 13-16 when it happened, i can't place it much closer than that, and that's just one incident, there are a few others that i've always remembered. but this stuff from the house i visited the other day, it's from when i was 3-6 years old that i lived there. and T (the little one) has said it's my dad. iknow that i was told to go shower with him, that my mom sent me in there, and her words to t, and the image she showed me were of her being pushed against the front of the shower stall face first into it while he shoved from behind doing something bad. then to go and see that room and have it not the same, it just confuses everything. i know that (even have proof that) the room i was tied up in was the way i remmber it, but this one the only thing i had with my limited memory was what she showed me and so when i got there and looked to see if she showed me right, and it was different, i was confused. i don't know if that means all of it is wrong, if nothing happened from him, or if something did and it's all just jumbled up.
i haven't been in contact with them for 5 years because i told them i wouldn't meet with them until they were willing to do it with a 3rd party to help us sort through it and begin a healthy relationship. they've lied toeveryone else in my extended family and they've told them that i'm "not talking to them". that's a twist of the truth.
my grandma pulled me aside (this is the first time i've seen her in 5 years) and she said, "you know i love you" and i said yes, and then she said, "i don't know what the troubles are between you and your folks, but would you please consider calling them..."
i explained how it wasnt' that i wouldn't call, its' that i've given them the way to restart the relationship (through a counselor) and they've refused....so she ended by saying that she would "go to work on them" to get them to change their mind and meet with me to reconcile things.
that scares me and i don't know if i can do it. i know my t. will help me work through it if it comes to that, but i'm hoping that they don't ever call and don't ever try to work it out, cuz with all of my doubts i'm afraid to meet with them. i was hoping that seeing that room was going to confirm some of the early childhood stuff that i'm not as certain of so that if we met i would be on more solid footing, but that's not what happened at all. now i'm less certain than before, and more afraid.
i just want the truth. and i dont' want to be wrong about any of this. it would be fine with me if none of it ever happened as long as i could know that for sure. i don't want people to feel like they have to encourage me that i'm right about my memories, i want to be right (whether it happened or didn't) that's all that matters to me is that i'm not in denial, or repression, or on the other hand, believing there is a problem where none existed.
sorry to ramble on and on. i just know there's no way to work this out talking and talking and talking through it if no one can know what really happened. only God knows for sure what the truth is, and so far the only direction i got from him was about "asking the little ones inside"....and when i did that i got this picture that didn't line up with the real place. now i don't know what to do.
thank you for reading this long post. i'm sorry.
You are not trying to make up a story, obviously....so in order to be sure your inner little one does not feel rejected, accept what memory you have, in the way you have it. You may find more information that makes the whole puzzle fit together, and you may not. Sometimes, I have gone back to a place too, and found that I did not quite remember it correctly. That's just because we are fallible humans.
I'd never go to court over my abuse memories, because my "legal memory" of them is not that good. BUT my "therapeutic memory" (heart memory) of them is enough to have the flashbacks & work through the memories in therapy & get over the disorder. THAT'S what's important to me!
Perhaps that's all you need to trust, unless you are planning to have a court case about it.
sweeteawice, it's interesting what you said about the memory being broken up. this summer i had a new picture hit me one day when i was trying to relax and ease some pain in my back. i was counting backwards and all of a sudden i saw this horrible movie in my head, and it was like these different men were doing something to me as a little girl, but the me was actually three different girls, and it was as though each one took a different sense of the experience (one touch, one sound, one sight). you are the first other person who has mentioned having things broken apart in the memories in a similar way.
also, thanks to the person who mentioned the persistence of memory. i have many that hang on even though i can't remember them in their entirety i know the part i have and it comes over and again. that might help me not be so critical of it.
i know it's common for people with SA history to blame themselves. it just seems right when i do it...
thank you everyone who wrote. your support is very very important to me!
emma