Is any body out there? DID
Hi, I'm a system looking to talk to other systems about our experiences and journeys. I see the group chats but doesn't seem like you can talk about your experiences there.
Great for some but anyway, maybe I'll give it a try.
But I want to share my story with someone who gets it and hear someone else's story. I'm working towards healing and not wallowing in a puddle. Meanings while I'm willing to talk about what happend I don't want to just stay there. Some people find comfort in just staying a puddle even when someone offers then a warm bath and towel. ANYWAY if your interested let's talk about it and find these puzzle pieces together!
@willingVase6638Hey :) It's nice to meet you! There's a few chats here for those with DID/OSDD.
There are some badge requirements for joining certain chat rooms - strictly for safety and security of everyone
Those requirements are found Here
The schedule for those chats are Here
We do have a section in the Trauma community that is focused on Dissociation related topics. You can find that Here
Words highlighted in blue are clickable :)
If you have any questions feel free to reach out. If I don't know the answer I'll find someone who does :)
@willingVase6638
Welcome to 7cups. I am so glad that you are reaching out to find support. I can relate to just wanting. to find others who can share information with one another. I am new to DID and am trying to learn and be accepting of finding out that I have a diagnosis. I am just beginning to understand about my system. So, I am unsure of how much help or support I could be, but I am here and willing to share my experiences with you.❤️
One thing that helped me understand my system was drawing how I saw my system. I am not a good drawer so it looks like doodles, but it's a personal therapeutic tool. I don't share all the details i know on it but it's like a map. It's a good visual for helping non-system individuals understand the inner world we have. It also helps me understand the inner world I have! 🙂it's a piece of work that grows and develops as you discover more about it. Because its like a map to ur inner world it should be gaurded like the password to youelr security system. You would give that info to just any one 😉I'm going to share 2 pics that help me explain and understand inner world....well I tried but I might have to do it in another reply to this thread.
Care to share in a nutshell how you came about your diagnosis?
@willingVase6638
I have had so many different diagnoses that have had major effects on us. DID was not something that they had much information on. Thank God for more information being learned so people like us are not being as misdiagnosed. I was given a series of different tests. By a psychologist and a therapist, that was used along with some type of brain scan, but I can not explain how that was used. But I have known about one insider, but I had no clue of what they meant by Dissociative events that had been occurring. I did not know I even had other parts. So with me, Acceptance of them and communication is what I am learning to do. Trying to build trust and explore the needs of and just trying to build rapport. I still have denial that often blocks me.
I have been trying to the mapping. but it has been a slow process.
Mapping has been a slow process too for me. It's taken at least 2 yrs. Part of why it takes so long is mani fold.
1. Once my system notices I'm putting it on paper I get blocked off even more from certain info. I have at least 3 ANPs( apparently normal parts) and they all have their own parts. ANP3 is pretty to herself, doesn't share much at all and is more secretive than anp 1 and 2.
2ndly. If I share alot of details of what I learned about my system with other people, wther I write it or tell it, a part called MemEater(Memory Eater part) activates strongly and I start losing access to even old info I've shared before. I'm still trying to figure out how to deactivate it🤔.
I know these are protective measures, but it does get annoying. Especially when I find someone helpfull but the parts inside don't always agree 😅 or they get really apprehensive about sharing. Especially since we've had some...not so desirable therapist shall we say.
Well, we are the mind network(not sure if I told you that yet).
We also live in a very big house on inside world.
3rdly. Communication. There are parts of me that don't really go for the idea of "talking to parts". Sounds kind of 🤪..you know what I mean? 😆. So i know there are parts of me I haven't connected with yet and that haven't connected with me yet.that sounds crazy doesn't it 🙃🤔.
I tried to share pictures on here in the threads. It still give me a hard time even after I granted it the permissions for photo access. So any way, I'm glad there's more info now than my older relatives days. Back then most ppl that were DID got labeled schizophrenic...and we wonder why🤔. No offense to anyone...please don't get me wrong.
Thank you for sharing. I lost my insurance about 1yr ago so its been a slow process but I've found other ways to manage.
@willingVase6638
I can resonate with everything you described. I did get the label of being Schizo. and psychotic.
Got put in the hospital and sedated with heavy medication that left me unable to function and worse off. I learned not to talk about my insiders for fear of being hospitalized. I have had a lot of bad therapists that have basically traumatized my insiders. Just when I was beginning to accept them and communicate with a few of them. I now have a Trauma therapist who explained that this is new to the mental health field, and still some of them refuse to accept this as being real.
So far I know that I have at least 5 in my system. One of my Littles just cries a lot. I try not to talk about her so much as she is easy to surface and I can feel her sadness and experience her weeping.
I have tried to comfort her but for some reason, we just don't seem to get on the same page. I have just recently found out that I have a young teenager who is a guardian of the Littles, and I won't speak his name. One thing I have found out they do not like me talking about them to outsiders for some reason unknown to me. I began keeping a journal, and they can write or use my journals. Then someone began to hide them from me. Maybe because I was sharing it with my therapist, and I have one that highly gets upset with me about sharing information about them. I still have times when this seems so unreal that I struggle with acceptance and building trust with them. So ever since December when the therapist offended them, they have been pretty silent. Which in some ways has been helpful for me to not hear all the talking and angry stuff going on. My therapist says it may take time to get their trust back before the communication can begin again.🤔❤️
I'll share a title of a book that expresses my feelings to an extent about the mental health system. I have doctors in my family. In a nut shell the book is written by a mental health professional(not related to me) who was lamenting the changes he saw to the mental health care system. A system that, wasn't equipping providers with the tools to bring deeper inner healing but rather a system that has medicated and sedated to death(hyperbole) the bodies abilities to heal itself when the damage hasn't gone so far and it's given the tools it needs. The allopathic and holistic need a marriage.
I digress on that subject and am wiling for further discussion elsewhere on that.
Moving along. My family has also been ran through the gammit of misdiagnosis from the mental health side. My mother being privy to how easy it is to be sedated and tucked away did what she could to prevent me going through that.some of my relatives haven't been so fortunate. Another topic for another day🙂.
Trust is a big thing for systems. Secrecy is another. If both are violated, balance is thrown off within. I have experince with my system not trusting me, not trusting therapists at times. It's all mechanisms for survival. There is a part of every human that is geared towards survival above all costs. There's a part of us that wants to defend The life-force within us. Some people are more prone to dissociation genetically than others. Animals aren't the only ones who pass info down such as instincts, to their off spring. Humans do it too. By the 3rd generation of trauma, dissociation and other survival traits become automatic.
Trust has to be built between hosts or anps and the rest of the system. How is it done? Well one main thing is when everyone inside can see and is convinced that we are getting the body, the vehicle of our life force, the help it needs as well as the ones inside the help they need, Trust becomes easier.
When I wasn't getting us the help we needed I had gotten kicked out of the house internally. The kids started trying to take care of things without me...well u can imagine how that went internally. I was constantly blocked from info I wanted to share with those trying to help me, until they saw we could trust them. With every not so good therapist it was a bit of a set back each time, but i did recover. If the body inside and out sees we r going towards balance, it will get in step with us when we give it what it needs.
Ugh..😆 there's so much I want to say I feel like it's bottlenecking in my head. Feel free to ask me questions, it actually helps me access info I want to share as well. Being on here is a type of risk because u know..ppl I don't know and...trust is earned not given. That's just a reality of life and it goes many ways. 😉😊😊
I could share my therapist experiences and 😅how my system responded to each if that helps.🤔
I went through something major that triggered a little that crystal. It's a non verbal one. That was a point in my life when all my other parts assembled and let me know " hey we are here!" And we don't trust u because u made the little cry...😆 yeah so now we are in a better place but that was like woah.
Also, ur schizo label thing, that reminds me of a realtive..a couple actually. Anyway, growing up I was around ppl who would "switch". One minute I'm talking to so in so and then next minute unannounced I'm talking to someone else. U get my drift right🤨. So this one realattive TILL THIS DAY keeps getting mislabeled schizo...and in the past as a child they weren't able to avoid the hospital.
Finally they( the docs)tried slapping on the BPD lablel..and I'm like THERE WE GO we r getting alittle closer now doc! It's frustrating u know, seeing ppl mislabeled. Honestly I belive many conditions are more of trauma conditions than so called disorders. What do I mean? What I mean is I believe trauma and dissociation are the basis on which all mental health conditions should be viewed through.
if ur body suffers physcial trauma like broken bone or something, pain and swelling inablity to move...these are SYMPTOMS not the conditon. Seems like theres so much focus on the sysptoms than the broken bone(the condition) slapping us in the face. 😮💨 any way.
Dissociation is a spectrum. This isn't to say other conditions aren't real, by no means, but I think the way mental health has been founded in western medicine is flawed. That doesn't mean I don't belive in anything western medicine has to offer. I have doctors in my family. But if we started looking at certain conditions as "symptoms" of trauma showing in diffrent forms of "dissociation" and other symptoms, I purpose we might have a breakthrough...just maybe, just maybe..
The name of the book I mentioned earlier is
" Healing The Soul In The Age Of The Brain" by Elio Frattaroli
@willingVase6638 Hi, yes you can talk to individual listeners, or share your experiences on forums.
@willingVase6638
I have one that is non-verbal, but he was talking to me when he said it. He said That his name was Jamie and that he could draw, but he could not talk, but he was talking to me then. He even made it clear that his name ended with IE. That has confused the heck out of me. My therapist said that I may have another insider with the same name but spelled differently. Wow, I still don't understand a lot about them. I am also aware of two Whispers., a male and a female. The male Whisper comes very close to my seeing view, but he is like a shadow looking out of my eyes. They talk to one another but not to me; I just hear them and see their shadows. My little one has been with me for a long time. The others are fairly new to me. I did not know they were there. I am not sure what their roles are, except Jamie defined his role as the guardian of the Littles, making me wonder if I don't have another Little I am unaware of. I sometimes get afraid of them and try to act as if they don't exist, which has not been good for me or them. As I said, this is all new to me, and I am trying to make sense and do what I need to to get them to talk again and let me help them or at least let me meet some of their needs. Yet part of me is unaccepting of all this, making the battle worse to win their trust. I think I get in my own way.
Trigger warning: mention of death with no further description.
Yeah sometimes I feel kinda woo woo 🤪trying to connect to my parts, but I know I need to.
No rush though right? I think they'll come out when they want.
I have 3 anps. One is called..well they don't want to share the name but they come from a big city. So they are modeled after the things we had to do to survive there.
Anp3 is well she stays in the top floor of the house, no one bothers her and only one part has access to knock on her door if we need it. Sometimes tht part is like her ambassador should we get close to things that trigger her. Anyway Thankfully we haven't needed anp3 for years, she usually comes out when we r about to die from other ppl( which has happened many times in the past) she helps us through the most unlivable times.
Parts have a way of making themselfs known. Some front like a group of kids at the front door nicely taking turns talking to whomever is outside the body. Sometimes some front by pushing one part out the way to talk at the front Door.
In other words for me switching now is very co-consious, I don't get amnesia walls like I used to. Sometimes I get what I call a hard driver switch. That's where anp1 is fully aware but a part from deep in anp1 system or anp2 system jumps up and takes the driving wheel..at those points I just have to sit an watch until they r done.
In the past I've switched out to where I can hear and feel, move about, but not see. It's a weird feeling, having your eyes open while ur body moves like someone else has a remote control to ur body, for ppl with ptsd when ur triggered, the feeling is like a reflex, it happens so quick there is no thinking. For ex, some one startles u, u jump back or shout, that's a reflex, it happened without u thinking.
Survival brain has parts of it that don't think when threatened,it only acts based on instinct and training. Training can be what ur mind learned from last time what worked and what didn't and what it figured was the best possible option for the current situation.
I've even had parts walk the body home when a certain ANP was too tired and overloaded to do so. 😆. So parts can be helpful at times But it's when they try to help in ways that aren't really helpful at this time.
Keep in mind parts are usually stuck in the time frame of the trauma that made them, to an extent. So for ex I have a part that when she is heavily triggered, they want to play as a coping mechanism. Other parts(I still need to convince there's a better way) sometimes want to just shut down and do the bare bare minimum and would have no problem staring at the wall all day😅, thankfully most of the parts don't want that so there's usually a big tug of war war inside when that happens. Hasn't happend in a while though. Thankulfully.
Learning ur parts takes time, it's kind of interesting learning them. It can be frustrating though because it's like a bus load of kids your trying to get to agree to eat at the same place...or at least the majority of them. 🤣🤣
@willingVase6638
It sounds very interesting and confusing at the same time, I hope to get to where you are.❤️
U can, with the right tools for the job I believe u will.
The right doctor help, yes and I'm not discounting doctors. It's great when u can find one that will help u on your healing journey and support your health decisions.
U r ur best advocate when it comes to Healthcare. Fibro, broken back and other injuries to name a few, I've learned this.
Equip your self with as much knowledge as u can. Here's how I did it.
I've researched
Effects of trauma on a child's mind.
Structural dissociation
Dissociation
Survivor stories( I listen to podcasts about other people's experience). This does not plant memories in ppls mind as some think, if u have the memory buried some where it will come back up when triggered, at the right time. It may not feel like the right time because it's uncomfortable and at times painful, but remember a volcano explodes and can destroy what was there before, but the same lava that destroyed is the same that when cooled and hardened actually creates a new land, a fertile one.
If I think of more things that I studied and do study that helped me I'll let u know.
Human will is strong, we just have to learn how to use it. 😉